Drive Train Choices

[BJC]

Originally Posted by nicholsjj

I believe the best advice I ever read on drive trains was a quote in a paper by team 33 that said ~"the best drive train in robotics is the one that gets you to the spot on the field where you want to be as quickly and as reliable as possible."
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I think you are talking about this thread Post #24. Our best two seasons are arguably 2011 and 2013. In both of these seasons we used a chassis that we prototyped in the offseason. The 2011 one was had articulating back wheels and the 2013 one was just a normal 8wd. The benefit from the articulating wheels was marginal in hindsight but the fact that we already had a drivetrain solution we knew would work was invaluable in terms of speeding up the design and build process.

Attempting to follow the 2011 and 2013 success trends we are prototyping the second iteration of our 2013 drivetrain this summer/fall. I only recommend that once you pick a drive type you stick with it over the course of a couple seasons and refine it each offseason. It's pretty hard to go wrong with this tactic no matter what you choose.

Regards, Bryan