Mecanum vs. Swerve Drive

[MichaelBick]

Originally Posted by Siri

We used to have one. It's driver-dependent (as is everything), but none of our drivers have ever wanted it, 4 having had swerve drive bases. It's not particularly useful given the rest of the controls' freedom, and while the mode itself isn't hard to learn, switching between them is a needless (and rather annoying) thought "jump". There's no inherent cognitive difficulty about driving holonomic long distances, whether opposed to other swerve maneuvers or tank.

Our drive has evolved away from "modes" more and more every year. We've found very little use in that control framework itself when it comes to swerve; not using it is one of the major reasons the drive is so cohesive now. The seamlessness is a major strength of the drivetrain. Our only 2013 mode is a radial spin for aligning the climb; everything else is like playing Call of Duty. Before, drivers would largely ignore all but 1-2 modes (plus an occasional game-specific), and none used tank.

TL;DR: do what your drivers want, but don't be surprised when swerve + modes = no.



pntbll, I moved to your new thread. Cool video!

Drive mode was probably the wrong word. One setup that I've thought of is where one joystick controls direction and speed, the other joystick controls your turn radius, and another button that activates turning around the center of the robot. This is the exact same setup as cheesy drive, except you also have the ability to move in any direction. This allows you to switch between tank and swerve, without switching modes. This is completely theoretical, so I honestly have no idea how well it would work, but the idea is that there must be some way to incorporate the benefits of both drives, without having to switch modes.