What is this “Tank Drive” and “Channel Mixing” stuff that everyone keeps talking about?
A. “Tank Drive” is the most common way to drive the robots. It involves two motors, one for the left and one for the right. Turning involves slowing or reversing the inside wheel of a turn while the outside wheel turns forward at speed. For an excellent graphical explanation of tank drive, please visit Jim Smentowski’s FAQ here. “Mixing” is the radio signal manipulation that has to take place to make Tank Driving happen with only ONE JOYSTICK, as illustrated on Jim’s FAQ. Mixing can be done on the radio (Elevator-Aileron (ELEVON) mixing on an aircraft radio), at the output of the receiver (using an outboard mixer such as the IMX-1 ESC Mixer from Team Delta/RobotLogic, OR, at the Speed Control (ESC) itself, such as with a Vantec. You don’t NEED to do mixing electronically. The other option is to use two joysticks and “mix” them in your head. This was how early tanks were driven and even some video games (think Battlezone) use this interface, so its not difficult to learn. Instead of a j
