Castor/Swerve Drive

[GCentola]

Originally Posted by LeelandS

If you DO want to go with Swerve, there are a few decisions you have to make. Namely, motor allocation. You could go with each module steered by its own motor, or you could chain a few together (2 and 2). That's how 1126 did their prototype chassis. That turned into 2 and 1 and 1 for Championships (2 chained together, 2 are independently driven). Now they are working to make it totally independent. I'm not exactly sure what the advantage is to making it all independent, but I'd imagine the modules would rotate faster and easier. It's also heavier and a little more complicated. So keep that in mind.

-Leeland

If I recall correctly, we tested the 2-1-1 on the prototype swerve but did not find any significant advantages to try and change it on the actual robot. The only change to our swerve in St. Louis was the Colson wheels. I guess, when one of our modules came off during a match, we did have 2 chained together and one independent, but that was unintentional

There was a team of people that worked over the summer to convert the swerve to 4 independently steered modules. Originally, that is how we wanted to build the 2012 robot, but the shooter team grabbed a window motor for the turret. Having 4 independently steered modules seems to be the better way to go in terms of programming, mobility, maneuverability etc. Last I checked, it is mechanically complete and is being reprogrammed.

Second, there are loads of presentations, threads, objective tables etc out there on these decisions. I will try to summarize them into this: build a swerve drive because you have gone through the thought process and decided it is worth the challenge and will offer you a benefit during gameplay. Do not build it (for the competition season) because you really just want to try it or you think it is cool. If you do want it, make sure you prototyped it first. 6 weeks isn't nearly enough time to design a swerve drive from scratch and do it well (especially when the best swerve drives have been perfected over years).


Garrick