Quote:
Originally Posted by Taylor
Does a butterfly-style drive necessarily imply the use of pneumatics? For a robot design that does not otherwise incorporate pneumatics, it is certainly important to factor in the space, weight, wiring, and programming required for a pneumatic system to support the drivetrain.
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Also, it's important to consider levels of implementation. When I think swerve, I think 16, 71, 111, 118, 1640. Those aren't representative of the 'average' swerve drive robot.
If a butterfly drive succeeds, it's pretty nice. If BD fails, it's still a completely capable 4WD robot*. However, there hasn't really been a team that has used it consistently enough, and at a high level of success, to be the standard-bearer for that configuration.
*the same can be said for a failed SD, but mechanical locks may be needed to achieve that.
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For butterfly drive you need to physically switch which wheels are touching the ground. This movement requires fairly quick actuation, a very large amount of force at stall (enough to support the whole robot), and only two positions. To me at least, those restrictions scream pneumatics. I guess theoretically you could use motors (big servos maybe?) but that would be way more complicated than with pneumatics where all you need is a cylinder pushing between the module and a hard attachment to the chassis.
IIRC 148 has used variants of butterfly drive in a number of games (I know they used it in 2010). They haven't used it every year like some of the team's above have used swerve, but if I had to pick a team to be the standard for butterfly drive, I would pick them.