Would my turning mechanism for my robot work?

[noodlesnoah]

I am making a robot and was wondering if this mechanism will work to turn my robot.
Below is a small diagram of my robot. The main wheels are by the circle and there are a few small not power ones for stablisation in the tail.
If I rotated the part pointed to in the tail or just the tail would it turn my robot?

 

[travellinglee]

Yes, you could steer with the rear wheel as long as you have forward or backward motion (the Germans built a car with that design about 80 years ago) but you would be way better off just having the tail wheel as a stabiliser (like a caster wheel you get on a shopping trolley) and having separate motors for each of the main wheels, it would give far more manoeuvrability and power and even let you spin on the spot . I have built 100Kg fighting robots so if you need further assistance just let me know.

 

[jedishrfu]

Your diagram is so sparse it’s hard to say what we are looking at.

From your description, it seems to be an aerial view of your robot on the ground. If you had two wheels for the globe part and one wheel for the tail part then it would act like a children’s trike but going backwards. Check out the photo in the previous post that magically appeared just now.

 

[noodlesnoah]

Yes, you could steer with the rear wheel as long as you have forward or backward motion (the Germans built a car with that design about 80 years ago) but you would be way better off just having the tail wheel as a stabiliser (like a caster wheel you get on a shopping trolley) and having separate motors for each of the main wheels, it would give far more manoeuvrability and power and even let you spin on the spot . I have built 100Kg fighting robots so if you need further assistance just let me know.

View attachment 250043

What was the car called I wanted to see it for research on stability and can't find it.

 

[jedishrfu]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_KR200
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velorex

 

[256bits]

I am making a robot and was wondering if this mechanism will work to turn my robot.
Below is a small diagram of my robot. The main wheels are by the circle and there are a few small not power ones for stablisation in the tail.
If I rotated the part pointed to in the tail or just the tail would it turn my robot?
View attachment 250036

Are your drive wheels on a solid shaft?
If so, turning the back wheel could just produce it to skid on the ground, rather than turn the vehicle.
If the front wheels are independent drive, then you still have to match the rpm's of each front drive wheel to the turn of the vehicle, otherwise the back wheel will be again in skid mode maybe more than turning the vehicle mode.

 

[travellinglee]

What was the car called I wanted to see it for research on stability and can't find it.

Messerschmitt - a German builder, they are most well known for building the messerschmitt 109 aeroplane that was the German equivalent of the British Spitfire in the WWII. You'll find it hard to find anything about specs as the Kr200 car is sooo old. B UT what you will find is reports that they were extremely UNSTABLE. 3 wheeler's have a tendency to fall over going around corners regardless of if the single wheel is at the back or the front (the pic here is of a Reliant Robin 3 wheeler). However, if you build your bot to have a low center of gravity you'll be fine, you have not said what the purpose of the bot actually is but if you can build it wide and low rather than tall and thin as well as put heavy stuff like batteries as low down in the chassis as possible then you should stay the right way up. With fighting bots which always have a low center of gravity, you still expect to get flipped so we build in 'righting mechanisms' take a look at this https://robotwars.fandom.com/wiki/Self-righting_mechanism