Hexagon / Octagon frame with Swerve

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by EricH

You might as well ask JVN what the reasoning was for using a nonagonal frame and swerve drive back in '08. I want to say I remember someone on that team saying it was to make it easier to go through traffic, but can't remember who, or if that was actually what they said.

I would consider it as "ease of getting through traffic" myself--you can use the robot as a wedge to split apart defenders (or move defenders away from the wall) if need be .

Lap runners in 2008, such as 148, required significantly different strategic design than the "general" robot does. The strategic advantages of round-ish, and more importantly, small for 148 are very different than the drivers behind most hexagonal/octagonal drivebases in 2014.

I don't think you'll see much of a wedging effect, given that bumpers exist.

Originally Posted by Nemo

I thought a main benefit of octagons was to make the robot bigger. Allow wider collectors and such.

It does allow more total area, but actually reduces your sidelengths, resulting in smaller under or through-bumper collection mechanisms. Over-bumper size would be determined by the rules of a particular game's maximum size (how far you can exceed bumper perimeter, total cylinder size, etc.).