Continue Discussion 47 replies
Mar '09

GroG

Clean start BOA,Is the

Clean start BOA,
Is the general idea 2 wheels rotating will move the bot in one of 3 linear directions - pushing or pulling depending on direction.

3 wheels will rotate the bot.

Looks great, umm, where’s the paint sticks?

1 reply
Mar '09

rik

programming

As soon as I read the word triangular, there was a bit of a brain haze right behind my eyes. Then my visual cortex kicked in and now I have a migraine!

Please let us know… Forget video. We want code! Or in your case: high level pseudo code.

Mar '09

noise0

perfect pivot rotations,

perfect pivot rotations, and side strafe capability eh…

not bad!

Mar '09

guibot

very clean mounting
very clean mounting technic!! good start!
want to see what you will do with ti :wink:

1 reply
Mar '09

arduinofun

nice! i like those wheels
nice! i like those wheels and base.

Mar '09

fritsl

But! It has 3 wheels in a
But! It has 3 wheels in a triangle, how can it drive forward?

2 replies
Mar '09 ▶ fritsl

rik

Who cares about forward.

You can be such a techy sometimes :wink:

Apearantly, Wowwee built a similar base for one of their’s, proving it can be done.

Mar '09

robologist

Here’s some formulas that

Here’s some formulas that can be used to calculate the direction and spin of a Killough platform robot like this.

And one robot similar, made for the Trinity Fire Fighting contest.

1 reply
Mar '09 ▶ GroG

BaseOverApex

Musings on Paint Sticks

TOW04_Fwd.jpg

Paint sticks are for artists. I’m a scientist and an engineer. That’s why nothing I start is ever really "finished."

The idea is that one or more wheels, potentially rotating an various speeds and directions relative to one another will move the “bogie” in a given direction regardless of what direction it’s facing.

TOW05_Right.jpg

Yeah, 3 wheels rotating the same direction and speed should rotate it about its centre. Any two wheels rotating in opposite directions will send it off in a straight line in the direction perpendicular to the third (non-rotating) wheel.

But look at the scribbles here. It’s clear that the wheels should be rotating in the direction of teh blue arrows in order to produce the overall motion indicated by the red arrows. The question is: what should the speed be?

To get it to go “forward” (bear in mind it has no “front”) as fast as possible, we drive the “front” wheels as fast as possible, leaving the “back” wheel fixed. To get it to go to the “right,” the “back” wheel rotates to the right with the frontleft wheel rotatingforward and the frontright wheel rotating backward. (Even though it relies on <I>Starfleet Universal Up</I> as it has no “front,” I’m now going to stop putting quotes round every reference.)

Hands up who doesn’t see the problem? Clearly, when arrempting tomove to the right, if I make the back wheel go full speed, it will move in a curve towards the top right.

1 reply
Mar '09 ▶ fritsl

BaseOverApex

Voodoo

You call it “voodoo.” I call it "science."

It doesn’t have “forward”. I thought you’d enjoy that as an artist. The simplest way to make it go in a straight line is to drive two wheels in opposite directions while keeping the other one still. It’s a real brain bender at first!

Edit: actually “opposite directions” is even a relative concept.It might be more accurate to call them “opposite directions in terms of rotational symmetry.”

2 replies