WCD vs. Swerve

[Gdeaver]

1640 has done 4 wheel independent drive, independent steering the last two years. We have the weight of each module down to 9 LBS. We have the durability nailed too. Greater that 100 hours on both bots. We have put an enormous amount of time, effort and money into swerve drive. Most teams may be stressed beyond their limits to perfect a swerve drive. With swerve you basically have to have every thing perfect or things will go very bad. The risk of failure with taking on swerve would lead me to recommend that most teams forget swerve and work on perfecting a 6 wheel drive base and focus more time on other aspects of the robot. We still do not have the swerve where we want it. We need to work on the driver presentation. I will say that with this years swerve and a trained driver, swerve can be a real competitive advantage. Is it worth the effort and money. We debate this issue constantly. If you don't have a functioning swerve drive base right now then it's a no brainer, do a 6 wheel for 2012.