Component Idea

[Classicus]

Hi guys, I have a component in mind that I would like to make but I'm not sure it's possible. Here's the idea:




Basically in real life it would be a big ball, with a horizontal housing containing ball bearings, giroscopes and motors. The idea is the ball is central in the bots construction and provides both propulsion and turning.


I'd like to know if you guys think it is even possible, or some version to make it work.

If it is not possible, is it possible to create a component like this where the ball rolls or has the appearance of movement, fwd, back and turning left/right?

It's a bit crazy I know but I've been working on a bot for the last 6 days that's kicking my butt at the moment and I think this is the only way I can make it work.

Any help would be really useful.

[Squirrel_Monkey]

Well I can tell you how to make a bot that can move in any direction if that's what you want...

[Classicus]

No that's not what I mean, I have a robot with two large side weapons, and I am thinking the ball could sit in the middle with the weapons mounted on the sides.

[Squirrel_Monkey]

No that's not what I mean, I have a robot with two large side weapons, and I am thinking the ball could sit in the middle with the weapons mounted on the sides.

So what does the ball do then? Is it just a mount?

[cephalopod]

From what I can gather, the ball is like an omni-directional wheel, and the housing powers it. Like an old ball mouse but the sensors turn the balls instead of get turned by the ball.
I don't think it's possible though, your best bet to make anything even like that is probably one motor/wheel on another horizontally mounted motor (maybe a servo).

[JoeBlo]

Mobility isnt even present like this in the games engine :P The physical turning of wheels has nothing to do with a robots movement,


Also motors only operate on an axle within the game so you couldnt motorize a free moving object like that either to my knowledge


Sorry


[/end dream crushing]

[Trovaner]

I think its possible but it wouldn't be easy. Also, since I've never done anything like it, I can't say for certain that it would even work.

First off, it would need to be separated into four components (two motors, one wheel, and one housing unit). It would go from housing unit to motor to motor to wheel. The housing unit would pretty much look like your current rim but the collision mesh would have a slightly bigger hole than the display mesh. There would also be an AP along the inside of one of the sides. The motors would be identical (just to simplify things a little). Attaching the motor to the shell would put the body of the motor along one of the adjacent sides (meaning the Generic_M end would be floating in space at 90 degrees from the actual motor). Attaching the second motor to the first would have it go to another adjacent side (0 or 180 degrees from the shell's Generic_M AP). The axle of each motor would be right in front of the motor's body. Unfortunately, it wouldn't work right unless you locked the axles in place (like the DSL tread wheels are). The sphere would have a traction zone like any other wheel. I'm pretty sure that you would only need to use a slightly larger sphere as the traction zone for it to work realistically. Unfortunately, with the axles locked on the motors, this wouldn't actually rotate. If the visual rotation is necessary, you could turn the housing unit into something like Serge's free moving axle but the other stuff would still be necessary.

IIRC, there are like five different types of hinges listed in the EXE but we don't know the syntax for all of them. If we did then this might have been easier to implement.

[Classicus]

Dang, sounds like something beyond my capabilities at the moment if it is indeed possible. It was a nice dream while it lasted. I really must stop watching sci-fi while I'm making bots as it gives me crazy ideas and disappointment.


To be honest I'm surprised something like this hasn't been done in real combat, it seems like an extension of that robot with all the components in the two wheel hubs.

[HurricaneAndrew]

To be honest I'm surprised something like this hasn't been done in real combat, it seems like an extension of that robot with all the components in the two wheel hubs.

Something similar to this idea has been done in real combat. Look up "Hot Wheels" from Robotica.