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Originally Posted by Jared341
Amazing as usual!
Your team took a 6-wheel swerve drive to Einstein last season, and I would have bet money that we would have seen it again in 2011 (with the flat field, it seems perfect). On paper, at least, 6-wheel swerve has advantages over this drive system (strafing while translating...e.g. diagonal movement). Both drive systems are much more complex than a skid-steer drive, but clearly within the means of your team.
What was your decision process that led you to the "lobster-drive" over doing 6-wheel swerve again? Complexity/weight? Some perceived advantage that is elluding me? The cool/doing something novel factor? Just curious!
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6 wheel swerve is great and if properly put into use it definitely has advantages. The one obvious advantage is diagonal movement. We went back and rethought our entire season last year when going through this design process. We found that almost 100 percent of the time when the strafing capabilities were put to use it was only for lateral side to side movement. This led us to believe that the diagonal movement might not necessarily be worth the time, weight, complicated code, and maintenance that come with having a 6 wheel swerve. Another advantage of lobster is that as soon as you drop the lobster tubes you know that you can go straight side to side. With a 6 wheel swerve you have to worry about having modules aligned to properly do a perfect sideways strafe. Yet another advantage of lobster is the ability to put in a drift function. Beyond what all the capability differences may be this drivetrain offers something that the swerve can not. It is a much more direct link between driver input and robot motion. This drivetrain essentially offers us the same advantages that our 6 wheel swerve offered us last year and possibly has advantages even beyond that and we plan to push it to its limits.