Team 2067 Swerve Drive Project

[page2067]

Apple Pi, Team 2067, is pleased to present our off-season swerve drive project. It is a fully independent swerve set-up and uses the revolution swerve modules from 221 systems. We integrated the drive and steering motors into a custom gearbox made from a 4”x3” piece of aluminum extrusion.

At the following link you will find, under the public domain label, 3 files available for download. The first is a power-point which goes through the swerve code development basics. The second link is to Labview code. The third is the CAD of the module. In the media/video section of our website you can find a video of the swerve drive in its initial runs.

http://www.applepirobotics.org/useful-links/

We started this project in the summer of 2012 after being on the Newton field and across the aisle from team 1717. (I have noticed that 2122 and 2471 also developed swerves after being on the same field – a testament to the inspiration power of great teams like 1717). It took us until this off-season for it to all come together.

Not sure if we will ever use it in a competition season, but it has been a fun learning project, developing CAD capability on the team, our first custom gearbox, along with the Labview development.

http://www.applepirobotics.org/2014/01/swerve-drive-control-mechanical-data/

[cjl2625]

Also, there is a v2 of the LabVIEW code that isn't on the site at the moment.
It's a remake of the original version that is more optimized and looks a lot prettier.

Hopefully it'll be ready by tonight once I make a few changes.

[Tyler2517]

We developed swerve after seeing 1717 on that same field in 2012....

[page2067]

Power of inspiration

[VioletElizabeth]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9WHMssEF4U
They look like they're dancing--it's hypnotizing.

[Tyler2517]

I remember going to worlds with our chairman award and our robot barely functioning. For one of our matches with them they came to our pit with their robot and helped us wright a auto code to feed them our balls. I think it was that little thing that made our team the happiest during worlds. Helping to score those point were the only point out of the bridge we scored the whole year. They were very nice to us and would actually talk to us about how it worked unlike some of the teams who would just gloss over us. I still to this day fell really bad for grinding the gears of one of their back up's on a steel bar when trying to figure out how the bevels worked.
I still think that robot was the best robot that year and if they had not had had connection problems would have won worlds.

[Gdeaver]

We had been doing swerve for a couple years and were very proud of our accomplishment. Then our team went to worlds that year and saw 1717's module. They're good.

[Austin2046]

We started this project in the summer of 2012 after being on the Newton field and across the aisle from team 1717. (I have noticed that 2122 and 2471 also developed swerves after being on the same field – a testament to the inspiration power of great teams like 1717). It took us until this off-season for it to all come together.


2471 already had had a swerve that year (I remember because we won Seattle Cascade with them that year). I believe they had one in 2011 as well. They used meccanum in 2013 but are back to swerve again this year.

[Tyler2517]

This is 2471's first year with swerve. In 2012 they had a crab drive (non coaxil)
In 2011 they had a really good mecanum drive(best i have ever seen). Along with 2013.

[cjl2625]

I recently rewrote the Swerve Drive code that we used during the competition, making it more optimized, easier to understand, and adding the capability to rotate around any point.

Here's Swerve v3:
http://s30.postimg.org/l17ni0tfl/Capture.png
Here are the LabVIEW files:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/93019118/Swerve%20Drive%20v3.zip

And here's a presentation explaining it:
http://goo.gl/quvrwx

[Alpha Beta]

Visually appealing and well presented. It looks like a wonderful starting point for any LabVIEW team wanting to develop swerve. If we ever go that route again (we had a brief fling with crab in 2010) I'll have to keep this presentation in mind. Thanks for sharing.

Here's a video compilation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02sxQ85vTrU) of the team in action this year. Looks pretty smooth.