This is meant as a platform where I can put a laptop and a webcam and then let the laptop control the NXT brick via usb or bluetooth from C++ code. The main purpose is to do some image processing and see how that turns out.
The speed of the platform is not very impressive as you can see in the videos and the gears in the sprockets tend to skip when the thing is turning - there must be too great a load on them or something like that.
Yes the 3 tracks on each side are connected together mechanically, and I see what you’re getting at and it does sound very reasonable. I’ll look further into it if the current platform falls apart - otherwise I’ll just let it be for now.
I do think that the inner tracks will rotate slower than the outer ones though since the angular velocity is the same for all tracks but the outer ones have to travel a greater distance than the inner ones.
I just have to figure out where to attach my old (very old) logitech quickcam and then I plan on using OpenCV for image processing and maybe starting out with something like following an object using fuzzy logic, since this was one of the things we did in a robotics course I took at the university.
They seem to be easily turnable although since they are made of hard rubber they tend to want stay in a certain position and it takes a bit of force (nothing the motors can’t easily handle) to get them away from that position. I guess that’s one of the prices of using LEGO - or maybe they have just been laying too long in the box, since this is the very first time I have used tracks for a LEGO project.
- or maybe they have just been laying too long in the box, since this is the very first time I have used tracks for a LEGO project.