[Madman503]

Well we liked the maneuverability of mecanum drives and also like the idea of being defensive. While a 6 wheel drive can be plenty maneuverable and fast...unless you use super shifters, you end up just choosing speed or pushing power. And the idea of us using swerve in our rookie year seemed daunting. This drive train however allows us the choice to be extremely fast and maneuverable, at the same time as giving us the ability to push and be defensive. As it often happens with really good teams/robots, when they are a threat, you have strategies against them for defense, often pushing/pinning. so we wanted to be able to deal with those kinds of strategies. I was thinking of building a drive similar to this when I saw 217 last year, and when I got back from kickoff this year, another mentor on my rookie team was thinking the same thing so we ran with it and it works great. Once we tweak the gear ratios a little to optimize the robots abilities, as well as a few tricks we have up our sleeve, we think we will be sitting pretty. And I don’t think that many teams will be able to out do this drive train this year, except for a drive train I plan on doing next year so long as the game calls for it.