Tribot swerve

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Ben Martin

Offhand, I can think of a few considerations:
- Looks like the side length would be ~37 in. for an equilateral triangle. This could make passing through a 36" door difficult if the bumpers are on (we have a hard time doing this with 28" robots with bumpers as is)
- You have ~23% less total volume available to you with the triangle configuration than the square configuration (with maxed out dimensions and an equilateral triangle).
These two items would dissuade me from pushing it in most cases, but in a game where space constraints are not an issue and you need wide pickups, I could see this configuration being useful.

http://i.imgur.com/nw7BGa8.jpg

Again, three wheels doesn't mean 3 sides. But for a demo there's no real reason to build more structure than is required to mount the modules.


One thing to be aware of is that you DO have a smaller contact patch. So for years where your CG is higher you may want to avoid 3 wheel swerves. see BBS 2010, the last of their 3 wheel swerves. Was actually retrofited in the off season to have 4 modules.


The thing I found interesting was the post about how you want 1 steering wheel up front. Every 3 wheel bot I've seen that has a denoted front (meaning, not 148 in 2008) has had 2 steering wheels up front and a steering wheel in back (16 various years, 67 in 2005). Id be willing to bet that was a function of not wanting to intake over a module? Not sure.