Swerve Drive vs Mecanum Wheel drive?

[efoote868]

Originally Posted by jamierose

To add to this statement, there has never been a robot on Einstein with Mecanum wheels.

This statement has always irritated me. Mecanum drive trains were extremely rare before AndyMark manufactured them, while swerve drive trains were (relatively) much more popular. The first year I remember AM mecanum wheels was in 2007; before that it took teams significant resources to manufacture them. If I recall correctly, two teams had them in 2005, maybe a half dozen in 2006, maybe a few more in 2007.

2008 didn't lend itself to mecanum drive trains (successful robots were geared 18fps+ with 2 stage transmissions). 2009 mecanum wheels were illegal, 2010 a large segment of the teams automatically ruled them out ("can't traverse the bump!"), similarly with 2012 ("can't balance on the bridge!").

Even now they're still taboo due to all the misinformation floating around.


In my opinion, "never made it to Einstein" has no place in this discussion because it ignores the wheel's history, as well as game designs and strategies. Until there is a year in which a large segment (say 20% or more of teams) in the FRC population uses mecanum wheels, I'm going to give no credit to that statement. After all, 100% of the robots on Einstein in 2009 had hard plastic wheels for their drive train.