Swerve: Belts or Chain?

[aldaeron]

Originally Posted by Answer42

Depending on the game crab drive can actually be an adequate swerve design. For example 118 used crab drive with a fully independent upper turret for their manipulator in both 2007 and 2008. they had no control of their chassis orientation but it didn't matter because they could turn their manipulator to face whatever way they wanted. Having one giant drive gearbox is a pretty neat advantage. I'm sure a revisit of their "v-6" gearbox with modern motor counts would be beastly. 148 also used crab drive in 2008. Since they had no manipulator (besides a pole to knock the ball down) they didn't need to worry about orientation. Just some thoughts.

This is what I was going to ask about. It seems lighter to make a "crab" (4 mechanically linked wheels with linked steering) with a rotating (turret) manipulator. To me this makes a lot of sense for control as well since the driver and co-driver can move each piece (drive base, manipulator) independently.

For those who did a swerve this year - do you think a "crab" with turret manipulator would have worked well? Seems like it would be great for passing and strafing for a shot (co driver could align to goal while driver is moving away from defense)

Has anyone measured the efficiency of a swerve or crab? There are a lot of interfaces for power transfer!!!

Thanks!

-matto-