pic: 3928 Swerve Module

[Aren_Hill]

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[Brandon Holley]

Aren and Co. over on the Neutrinos have cooked up a swerve module unlike any FIRST has seen before.

"Necessity is the mother of invention" pretty much sums this up for me. They thought "How else could you make a swerve module lighter and smaller?" and this is what came of it.

I've been excited about this thing for a long time and am very pleased to see it successfully constructed. Extremely elegant design.

-Brando

[Nuttyman54]

Wow. I hope you guys make it to championships so I can see this in person. Do you have any shots from other angles? I can't see where you put the drive motor, but I assume it's on the other side of the wheel?

Incredible design.

[DampRobot]

Wow, this looks amazing! I like the belt tensioning system. A few quick questions:

• How do you drive the wheel? It is somehow coaxial, or driven by a motor that rotates with the wheel?
• What type of bearring did you use for the wheel steering?
• What diameter is the wheel?

Also, I know Aren_Hill famously said that a swerve drive should be built on the offseason and then given a year to sit before putting it on a competition robot. (I'm sorry, I can't find the quote right now.) What lead you to decide that a swerve was needed to be competitive, despite the fact your rookie team had never done one?

[Brandon Holley]

Originally Posted by Nuttyman54

Wow. I hope you guys make it to championships so I can see this in person. Do you have any shots from other angles? I can't see where you put the drive motor, but I assume it's on the other side of the wheel?

Incredible design.

Originally Posted by DampRobot

Wow, this looks amazing! I like the belt tensioning system. A few quick questions:

• How do you drive the wheel? It is somehow coaxial, or driven by a motor that rotates with the wheel?
• What type of bearring did you use for the wheel steering?
• What diameter is the wheel?

Also, I know Aren_Hill famously said that a swerve drive should be built on the offseason and then given a year to sit before putting it on a competition robot. (I'm sorry, I can't find the quote right now.) What lead you to decide that a swerve was needed to be competitive, despite the fact your rookie team had never done one?

Both of you look closely at the module and you will see how it is driven.

-Brando

[W1NG$]

driven with internal motor in the center of the wheel? and what did you choose for the drive motor. looks great guys! but diet mtn dew.......really?

[James Tonthat]

Wow, it's out in the wild. I'm proud to have seen one of the original concepts and have told you that you were crazy, still think you're crazy.

Great execution, and good luck!

[Nuttyman54]

Originally Posted by Brandon Holley

Both of you look closely at the module and you will see how it is driven.

-Brando

I see it now...that's a CIM. WOW just..wow

[Jared Russell]

When Aren started talking about this concept, I was convinced it was a joke. That any team - let alone a rookie team - actually built a swerve drive with a CIM motor as an axle absolutely blows my mind.

[ttldomination]

Originally Posted by Nuttyman54

I see it now...that's a CIM. WOW just..wow

It's like one of images that's usually captioned, "When you see it...".

Holy crap this is amazing. Can't wait to see some shots from other angles.

- Sunny G.

[EricH]

Until I found out there was a CIM in the middle of the wheel, I was thinking that Aren and company had somehow managed to make a single motor do both the rotation of the wheel and the rotation of the module, and was trying to figure out how that worked.

Next year, maybe...

[Taylor]

What is the weight of the assembled module as shown?
How do the modules attach to the chassis?
What is the maximum allowable horizontal rotation, and how do you keep the CIM motor wires safe and secure?
I'm having trouble envisioning the other side of the module. Do you have a pic handy that shows the "back"?

[Akash Rastogi]

What's cool is that Aren's students were the ones who really wanted to pull off the swerve. We knew Aren was crazy before he even proposed the design, but now there's a whole team of crazies! Glad it's finally out in public. I hope people finally understand the Aren Hill drillbit meme on Facebook haha.

[IKE]

CD to IKE: "You cannot give credit to the same post twice."
IKE to CD: "If a 3928 can pull off a swerve module like that, then they deserve double credit."

Bravo to 3928.

[Adam Freeman]

Aren,

I am usually not a very big swerve drive fan, but this is awesome!

Very inspiring!