Believe it or not, I had been working on the HOG wheel for months when I met this guy last year - Geen at Mecha Mayhem in Chicago. I was blown away that we both came up with this concept using totally different approaches. He helped me put together the first HOG wheel prototype the same day. His combat bot One Fierce Dragonfly is incredibly powerful since it uses two lightweight servo motors to actuate the wheels and one giant weapon motor to spin the blade and to drive whith - really fun to watch it destroy stuff.

LOL you have no idea! Luckily I made good friends with the janitor who works the hall outside the robotics lab. The new prototype uses a very smooth polyurethane wheel just for this reason. It really decreases the acceleration but doesn't mar up the floor as much. It also makes the effect of small bumps and/or cracks in the ground surface almost non-existent.