What Jared said.
Also, FIRST has literal strategies that jack-of-all-trades swerve just isn't the best for. Of course, if you want to master a single "trade", swerve isn't necessary. But even if you want more, swerve gives you two things--reasonable holonomic-ness and reasonable traction--all the time. If you want, say, better holonomic drive sometimes and unmovable traction other times, something like switchable wheels/Octocanum could be better. Etcetera.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi
What is impractical about making a multi-speed swerve?
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Depends. If you're doing a limited swerve/non-coaxial, adding a shifter isn't so hard. Maybe heavy, but at least you're not rotating it and probably don't need so many. In a co-axial, you're driving each wheel independently and rotating the drive motor/gearbox with the module. Adding a shifting mechanism gets really big and heavy (and expensive and complicated) really quickly. We do all our gear ratio adjustment via belt pulleys and planetary gearboxes. After two years of working on the drive, "impractical" still seems like a pretty good word for trying to mount an AM Supershifter on
this, but maybe there are more streamlined shifters?
That said, we tend to win our pushing contests.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexH
Only effective if you have a good driver who can capitalize on the directional freedom that a swerve offers.
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Moreover, only if you have enough good drive time with your chassis to get this capitalization experience. We've done poorly in this area for the first two years, but now that we have essentially optimized hardware, getting-close programming and excited drivers, this is huge.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Aren_Hill
I've got a few concepts that could hit < 35lbs for complete chassis with completely independent module power and steering, so weights only really an issue if you aren't trying hard enough
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Wow, that's great! Our modules are at 9.1lb each with a 14.1lb chassis weldment. How'd you get it to 35lb total?