To swerve or not to swerve

[Bryce2471]

Team 2471 made the decision to go with a swerve drive system this year.
In short, we decided that in this years game it's important to put the robot in the right place on the field facing the right direction, as quickly and efficiently as possible.

It will be a tough rode to go down, but we did have a successful off-season bot with swerve drive this year. we also did a somewhat successful crab drive in 2012.

Some of the disadvantages people have mentioned earlier in this thread not a big issue with the design we are using. We also did a drop center drive bot this off-season. The drop center drive base weighed in at about 36 lbs and the swerve drive base was about 37 lbs. The modules weigh 7.5 lbs each, only take up a 6" by 6" square, the wheels touch the carpet 2" in from the edge of the robot, and they only cost 222$ per corner.