Thread: Swerve Drive Modules
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Unread 12-05-2011, 14:38
buildmaster5000 buildmaster5000 is offline
Trying to program the swerve drive
AKA: Alex
FRC #2421 (Rolling Thunder Robotics)
Team Role: Alumni
  
Join Date: May 2009
Rookie Year: 2009
Location: Northern Virginia
Posts: 207
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Re: Swerve Drive Modules
Others have said this and I will echo their sentiments: if you do swerve drive, it needs to be reliable, and built like a tank! We spend many hours at our (only) competition fixing little things that kept creeping up on our swerve drive system. Also, I have trouble believing that the module you disigned will hold up against any amount of side load (imagine a 200 lb robot traveling 20 fps raming you at a dead stop. If you are moving, that net speed goes up, and bumpers will not do everything.) without torquing or just sheering the ouput shaft. Personally, it was really a nice feeling to have the bottom assembly of the WildSwerve modules there, where we could not sheer the output shaft.

In addition, decide on a control scheme and programming strategy, and if at all possible, have the driver be the programmer. I both programmed and drove my team's swerve drive this past season, and I was able to quickly and easily diagnose software problems just because I knew the program so well.

If you are interested, I can point you to the team code from this year, as well as answer any questions you have via PM.
__________________
-Alex



2010 Washington DC Regional: Engineering Excellence Award