Castor/Swerve Drive

[EricH]

Swerve drive? In your second year? Better get started now...

First, I should warn you that the mechanical part is the easy part. After all, you only have to figure out how to rotate a wheel, and its power routing (motor power via gears, or electrical power without totally twisting the wires), and make it fit on the robot within the weight limit. Do you want all the wheels to rotate together and drive together, or do you want independent rotation, or independent drive, or split with one side controlled by one group of motors and the other controlled by a different group? To make that a little bit easier, see http://www.andymark.com/Swerve-s/148.htm for a couple of designs derived from proven ones. Also take a look at 16 and 973's swerve designs.

Then the programmers get to figure out how to make it work right. That's the fun part. Not only does the programmer have to get everything responding (and pointing the right direction), but then they have to tailor it to any driving modes that the drivers want.

Can it be done? Yes, and it has been done very successfully. Is it easy, no. NOW is the time to prototype one and see if you can solve the issues before the build season. You might not be able to use it this coming season due to other issues (including the game), but it's always nice to have an extra system in your bag of tricks. For a swerve drive, you don't want to be prototyping during the 6 weeks--not enough time unless you have a massively large team with enough tools and materials for everybody. Do it during the offseason if at all possible.