Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris is me
I just think it's weird that the first drivetrain called butterfly was an articulated traction / omni combination... Then the term enters (vaguely) popular use to refer to the other kinds of articulated drives in 2012-2014... But now we're changing it because of one team? If all omni was always the intended meaning of butterfly and a traction mode was always an "extra", then I probably have been misunderstanding the term the whole time.
I can see the challenge of picking a different name for it though. "Omni drive" implies holonomic capability. Perhaps "omni wheel tank" would be more descriptive? Doesn't exactly bounce off the tongue.
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It's my understanding the original name was given because of the omni only portion of the drive, hence the "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee" phrase. The omni wheels being the "butterfly" and the traction wheels being the "bee". It became a short hand for the entire articulated drive base but it makes more sense to refer to only the omni portion as "butterfly" since it's the part that is doing the "floating".