Learning and Understanding different drivetrains

[theCADguy]

CONS: Medium to heavy weight depending on wheels
All wheels are chained- no direct drive, so it's possible to throw a chain and lose control of one side
Takes up more space
More difficult to swap wheels/tread

Actually, throwing a chain does not cause a loss of control on one side. At the WPI regional in 2013, we (Team 20), lost a chain in our west coast drive during a finals match, and had no time to replace it before our next match, so we played that match without a chain, and we experienced was very little loss of control. In fact, it was impossible to tell (from the stands) that we had lost a chain.

We had a similar situation this year at the Tech Valley regional, were we smashed a drive train bearing, and had to remove the affected wheel, as we had no time to fix it. Our WCD performed just as well with 5 wheels as it did with 6, and we won that match.