ROBOTMAK3RS Blog

A design issue that I mention several times in the projects on www.nxtprograms.com is that of weight balance. To get a mobile robot to perform well, you need to get a good percentage of the total robot weight over the driven parts (powered wheels, legs, whatever), and keep weight over other parts that are just rolling or dragging to a minumum. Well, this Dog Sled Team project appears to set the record for the worst weight balance of any of my projects so far, with only about 10% of the total weight over the front legs of the dogs, which are trying to do all the work to drag the heavy sled. So how does it work? How do real dogs do it? Hmm, maybe there's a trick to it...