Swerve Drive

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Eagle,
The game determines our use of crab. The advantage comes from it's ability to move like a crab, forward, backward or side to side, without the need to turn the robot. This can be a real plus when the game needs you to pick up or score rapidly and has little obstacles on the field. While Logomotion could have been successful with crab drives, we felt most motion would be forward and fast followed with an accurate minibot deployment. Crab worked well for us in 2003 by allowing maneuvering onto and up the ramp and also allowing us to target stacks. It's downside is that it requires a lot of practice to get it right. Drivers need to be able to visualize movement while driving towards or away from the driver's station in any orientation. They need to be able to control the robot even when it is turned (either intentional or not) and still get to the target. Drivers need to see the movements in their sleep. A well implemented crab drive will usually take more space and require more weight than other drives and will require some extensive fine tuning of the software to track and be accurate during auto.