[zinthorne]

I have never personally seen a swerve drive in person, but only in videos. This is the first year that my team has used mecanems. We decided that we also wanted to develop a new drivetrain to go with it. It is sort of an octanum drive base. We used 4 4" mecanem wheels and 2 six inch traction wheels. We have gone through 2 district events and gotten second in one. The first event we got pushed around a decent amount, but in the second, we got pushed around less as we got better driving. The traction wheels also allow us to play some pretty good defense too. The choice that teams make between tank, mechanems, and swerve should be based on their desired strategy that year. I have found mechanems to be the greatest wheels i have seen when lining up for the one point goal. Since they can "drift" it makes it easy to drive up quickly, and then move side to side to put the ball in quickly. I have seen numerous teams have to line up multiple times when they try to get the ball in.