Who is using swerve for aerial assist and why

[techtiger1]

Good afternoon everybody,

My team members and I had a very spirited debate about weather or not swerve drive or regular tank drive (e.g. 6 or 8 wheel) would be optimal for this game over the weekend. Just wondering who has made the decision to use swerve drive this year and why. Looking forward to the answers.

Thanks,

Drew

[Ariane Nazemi]

Hi there,

Although swerve drive is currently outside of our team's capabilities (we are a rookie team), I personally believe that swerve (or crab) would help greatly if your robot is an over-the-truss catching robot as you can quickly align yourself with the trajectory of the ball without having to turn first. This saves you precious seconds while the ball is in the air.

Hope that helps!

[Tyler2517]

We are looking in to swerve heavily. other then the mechanical complexity if you cant program it to its true potential then i would not recommend using it. It will take a long time to master the code and they take weeks to build.

[ninjosh97]

Why swerve over mecanum?

[Matt C]

Originally Posted by ninjosh97

Why swerve over mecanum?

Traction

[JohnSchneider]

Originally Posted by ninjosh97

Why swerve over mecanum?

No protected shooting zone? Defense being a major part of the game?

[Tyler2517]

Swerve has a much better tactical feed back with encoders. It can use the full power of each of the cim motors, for a much higher speed/acceleration/better torque. unlike mecanum which are very easy to push in compared to almost all other types of drive trains. they can not strafe side way nearly as cleanly as a swerve can. Swerve can also drive a much more straight line. But will have a massive resource draw, even the best of teams can have a hard time building and programming them.

[cbale2000]

Honestly, if it weren't for the traction problems, I'd almost prefer mecanum this year. Swerve is nice but can take time to change orientation, mecanum is more instant. Regardless, the ability to side strafe would definitely be handy.

Either way, our team will likely be building a tank-style drive this year.

To quote Cory McBride, mentor of Team 254: "Swerve is never necessary."

[ninjosh97]

K. I didn't really know what swerve was...

I think I understand now.

Yeah, some of my team mates want to do mecanum this year... but I'm going to try to convince them otherwise tonight.

Probably going tank drive. It's easy and effective.

Your right, traction is going to be a biggy this year.

[techtiger1]

Originally Posted by Andrew Lawrence

To quote Cory McBride, mentor of Team 254: "Swerve is never necessary."

That is a tough one to argue with. Traction would be the reason why swerve over mecanum, we are going with 8 wheels probably but I wanted to hear what CD had to say. I am however in favor of swerve being a good strategy this year and pushing the envelope as far as design so I can't say I wouldn't have liked to try swerve.

[Nemo]

True, swerve is never necessary. But if you're team 16, or 71, or 1717, or 1640, or some other team that has swerve pretty much down, you're probably liking your swerve drive right now. I think this would be a great year to be a team that already has a swerve drive well established.

[Steven Donow]

In my opinion, swerve is pretty much one of the most versatile drivetrains and almost always provides some form of advantage in the game each year, but the general rule of thumb (that I believe was present in 1114's strategy or drivetrain design presentation) is that if you've never done swerve before (either in offseason or regular season), don't do it. The 6 week build season is just not complementary at all to the designing, construction, and TESTING of a swerve drive.

[Gdeaver]

If you have not been playing with a swerve test bed the last month, then swerve is not for you. For teams that have done the prototyping it's still a soul searching decision. We are going with swerve again this year with some tweaks. Mill will probably start up on Thursday. The rush is on. Now the focus is on how to deal with the ball and save room for the UN-announced end game.

[JohnSchneider]

Originally Posted by Gdeaver

save room for the UN-announced end game.

Please stop encouraging this