Team 2471 swerve drives

[Bryce2471]

Did you guys use resources on CD (papers, posts, etc) as a starting point, or did you work from first principles to figure out the physics and math?

Originally, in 2012 at the championships on Newton field, I was inspired by the maneuverability of 1717. We were on an alliance with them in the elimination rounds. Unfortunately, they weren't functional for most of the quarter and semi final rounds, but I still wanted to make a drive train like theirs.
Partly because 1717 doesn't publish their designs or code, we took into consideration the resources that are available from team 1640. They are very generous to offer years worth of experience. While their detailed cad designs helped me get off the ground, their software papers were more complicated than I was hoping. So, essentially all of the ideas that went into this version of software came from the minds of the people involved in the project. We already have most of the ideas compiled for the field-centric version as well, but I'm sure we will run into some challenges that we have not yet foreseen.
After the field-centric version is complete, we will try out a new concept that is specific in solving the challenges involved in this years bunny-bot off-season event. the main challenge to the game is collecting and herding 6" foam dodge balls, while only using a three sided corral.
After bunny-bots, we will do our best to publish a white paper about several aspects of the project as well as post the designs so that others can use them.

Edit: Here's a link to us playing with 1717
http://youtu.be/X-Jm1vQ_bSk?t=24m26s