Castor/Swerve Drive

[Secretspy97]

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.

We changed from 2 pairs of wheels being rotated by one window motor to all four wheel being rotated separately because it would allow the robot to turn more efficiently. When the wheels are connected together and you try to spin the robot, two of the four wheels are dragged on the carpet. This both damaged the carpet and we had to change the wheels tread often in order to have enough grip to climb the bridge.