[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by GeeTwo

I'm still wondering what was up with that central gearbox that was later distributed. It appeared to be an essentially 1:1 gearbox which brought four CIMs together onto a single shaft, which was then redistributed around on four separate swerve shafts. It seems to me that it would have been easier and more efficient to put a CIM on each swerve shaft, but to include a sprocket which tied the four shafts to the same speed to allow redistribution of energy as needed (e.g. as loading increased on two wheels due to acceleration away from them).

Traction. By combining the motors onto one shaft, in addition to allowing for a single dewalt shifter, it also allowed any one wheel to have all the motors power available. Thus, even if a wheel lost traction, the full pushing power would still make it to the ground through the others.

Another good example is 148 in 2008... they did 2 FP plus 4 Cim, going to three swerve pods, which were steered with a van door motor. Since they had no "front" (it was an equilateral nonagon lap runner), they had no need to "steer". As a result, they could both run laps well AND provide very good defense (and this was one of many reasons why their CMP alliance were champions).