Drivers Control

[magnets]

We used a steering wheel for a swerve drive, and I know that bomb squad has done the same in the past.

We had swerve so that the two front wheels would always be at the same angle, and the rear wheels would always be at the same angle.

We had two modes. In the first mode, we had no control over our orientation. We had one joystick that set the direction that robot would travel.

The second mode used a steering wheel and two pedals. The pedals set the robot's speed. The wheel changed the turning radius. If the point we where were turning around was outside the robot's frame perimeter, the robot "snaked" and the wheels would go like this
/.../
\...\
This would also have the two left wheels drive a little bit faster, as they had to travel a farther distance.

If the point of turning was inside of the robot's frame perimeter, it would just skid steer turn.

Also, we had two buttons which control "crab mode", which would add 90 degrees to the wheel angle and caused the robot to go sideways.

This worked for one year for a very strange driver, but the year after, we just went with two joysticks.