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Mecanum Drive

  • Lesson
  • 1 min read
  • 6 of 6 in this chapter

What is a Mecanum Drive

One of the more popular drive trains nowadays is the Mecanum Drive. It is a four-motor drive with mecanum wheels. The reason teams choose to use this over different drive trains is because you can strafe with them without the need for omnidirectional wheels. While many think they are pretty complicated to set up, they actually aren’t.

First, create four motor variables. Left Front, Left Back, Right Front, Right Back. Then, hardware map them.

Create three variables, forward, turn, and strafe. Make each variable a double equals to the controller joystick you want.

How the mecanum drive strafes is that the opposite wheels go the same direction. So, we make each motor set to a series of additions and subtractions of these variables.

Java
lF.setPower(forward + turn + strafe);
rF.setPower(forward - turn - strafe);
lB.setPower(forward + turn - strafe);
rB.setPower(forward - turn + strafe);

You can definitely go more complicated, but this is a simple mecanum drive you can use for any bot.