pic: I was bored... so I designed this.

[Nuttyman54]

Originally Posted by craigboez

I don't understand. Why would you go to the trouble of building an extremely complicated drive so it can approximate the functionality of a very simple drive?

Because it gives you swerve capabilities, but without the downsides of a 4wd. One of the significant downsides to a typical coaxial 4wd swerve is that it cannot turn on it's center very well (skid steer), for the same reasons that a 4wd has a harder time turning around it's center than a 6wd (if this concept is unfamiliar to you, there are many threads on CD that discuss the physics behind this, go look them up).

There are two main solutions to this: 1) do a module style (non-coaxial) swerve or an independently driven (ala Emperor Swerve by 973) which allows the wheels to always turn such that they are not skidding when making a center turn or 2) make your code so that you don't make turns like that most of the time (as 40 used to do, with quadra-steer).

If you add the extra set of dropped center wheels, you get all the benefits of a swerve drive, but you still have the non-swerve driving characteristics of a 6wd.

[thefro526]

Just to add a quick point onto Evan's post: A 6WD swerve, in theory should also handle climbing objects a little better, depending on the object and the implementation of the swerve. A 4WD swerve would require quite a bit of ground clearance at the center, which may or may not be advantageous. A 6WD swerve would need ground clearance similar to a conventional 6WD. (For more clarification, look at some of the 4WD robots from 2010 vs the 6WD robots and you'll see what I mean.)

[MichaelBick]

Also, the other solution is to drive each side independently, and then turn corners together.

[Foster]

The title of this thread is "I was bored... so I designed this."

How much time did you spend on the design? I see a number of these every year and figure that there are hours and hours spent.

Thanks!

[Garret]

Sorry for the late response I have been busy the past few days. I spent about 4 nights working on this design. I designed this in 4 stages, I started with the module design, then I designed the mounting set-up, then the frame, and then finishing the assembly. Each stage was about a day of design.