[pntbll1313]

Originally Posted by efoote868

If next year's game saw upwards of 30% of teams choosing mecanum drivetrains, and still none of those teams make it to Einstein, there might be something to that statement.

That's a good point. I would be interested in knowing the total number of teams that chose each drivetrain. I don't think a CD poll would ever be a good way of finding this out, as more advanced drive trains would be over represented. (new teams that don't follow CD and used the kit bot would be under represented, where great teams that pick swerve may have 5 members following CD and all select that option in the poll). We would need to look at real scouting data for the answer to that. For example in my division at Champs, Galileo had 10 mecanum bots that I know of based on my scouting. They went 8-2, 8-2, 8-2, 3-7, 6-4, 2-8, 4-6, 6-4, 5-5, and 3-7 in qualifications, for an overall 53-47 record. In Galileo at least, it looks like mecanum drive performed more or less on par with the rest of the field based on that overall record.

Knowing the overall percent of teams that choose each drivetrain, their percentage of making it to champs, and their winning records, would all be pretty interesting information. That probably isn't pertinent to this discussion though as I think you need to judge the robot on individual performance. The difference between a good swerve and bad swerve may be the difference between moving in a match or not, so you obviously can only take these generalizations so far. Assuming you have a functioning drive train I still feel driver practice is the single most important aspect with any drive train.