The Hardest Drive System To Program:

[Duncan Macdonald]

Originally Posted by davidthefat

I just realized why more teams don't do swerve: it is hard to do the actually mechanical fabrication than it is to code it. I am not sure if my team is capable of producing such a drive system. Most of the mechanical guys are seniors and are graduating. My mentor will not let me learn any mechanical skills because he deems me as a too valuable of a programmer to be welding and stuff.

The most "advanced" drive we can fabricate will probably be a mecanum drive, possibly an omni drive.

But, if there are any teams that are willing to invite me to help program something more advanced, I will be glad to do it. I really have our doubts for next year. Chances are, we will go with our 6 wheel again (which I loath)

you could fund raise really hard and help your mechanical team out if you really want to build one.http://www.team221.com/order.php?cat=3

I wouldn't recommend doing something solely because it is hard. Most teams do a cost/time vs return analysis and decide that focusing on an effective manipulator and simple drive will result in a better final product. We did this and decided that in this game* a mecanum has some advantages when hanging tubes and we wanted to add it to our bag of tricks.

*Chose not to in '07 because we anticipated heavy defense