Hi. My team wants to do a holonlmic x-drive on a rectangular chassis; we were wondering if the coding is the same as a x-drive on a square chassis and if you need really good weight distribution. Our coach was really skeptical on whether or not it would work.
When you use an X-Drive, you lose out on some space, becuase of how the wheels are. Since the size limit is a 18^3 cube, teams will make their square of an X-Drive as big as possible to minimize this disadvantage, making a rectangle would only lower that amount, for no foreseeable benefits, because all you are doing is artificially shrinking your robot. If you can see some big benefit that would outweigh much smaller room for an intake, then go ahead. But, personally, I wouldn’t try to make a rectangle. Good luck with your season!
I think he means an X drive that is still 17.5" wide, but the length is 12.5" or so. In that case, the drive should still work and code the same because the wheels are still at the same angles.
Yeah, the code will be identical, I’m just saying that it probably won’t be a good idea.
Thanks
The spinning will be really weird and as mentioned you will lose space on the inside of the chassis but other than that I can’t think of anything that would be different compared to a normal symmetrical x-drive.
It’s your choice:
Choice 1: If you make the center of gravity centered on the drivetrain, you make the code the same. In my opinion, this is the best route to take. However, the center of gravity of the entire robot MUST be centered on the drivetrain, not the overall volume of the robot. I took this route when I built a lopsided drivetrain
Choice 2: Have the center of gravity lopsided. With this, you have to scale your drivetrain motors to make the motors further away from the center of gravity weaker than the motors close to the center of gravity. Do not recommend.