[Joseph Smith]

Originally Posted by theCADguy

Actually, throwing a chain does not cause a loss of control on one side. At the WPI regional in 2013, we (Team 20), lost a chain in our west coast drive during a finals match, and had no time to replace it before our next match, so we played that match without a chain, and we experienced was very little loss of control. In fact, it was impossible to tell (from the stands) that we had lost a chain.

We had a similar situation this year at the Tech Valley regional, were we smashed a drive train bearing, and had to remove the affected wheel, as we had no time to fix it. Our WCD performed just as well with 5 wheels as it did with 6, and we won that match.

I think you misunderstand me... Throwing the chain from the gearbox to the wheels in design #1 would result in losing power to the wheels on that side. Of course this depends on how the chain is run, but it's assuming that you have one chain from gearbox to the center wheel and from there the wheels are chained to each other. Also, one of the benefits of WCD that I listed was that throwing a chain wouldn't cause you to lose power on that side because the center wheels are direct driven from the gearbox (in our design at least.)