independant 4 wheel drive

[Grommit]

I'll avoid addressing items already mentioned and repeated, and state the following out of our team's experience:

Driving pairs of wheels on each side with one output shaft with chains going to each wheel in the pair, and having identical gearboxes on each side, has been successful for us. Fortunately, our motors wore down at roughly the same rate and it kept both sides at the same speed.

On the other hand, this year our drivetrain was a living NIGHTMARE. We had four individual modules, with all the gears mounted inside the wheel, and motors sticking out of the wheel suspended in $125 bearings (cha-ching!). All four modules rotated by way of a window motor on a chain that ran on the top of the robot, creating a mess that made mounting difficult. But the worst part was that the wheels broke down every so often, making them very high-maintenance. And did I mention that they were supposed to run at the same speed, but in actuality were quite a terrible mess? I'm not sure if this is electrical or mechanical, but half the time one of the four wheels was running slower than the other four and messing the bot up. Also, it is hard to align the wheels, and if your wheels are as wide and high traction as ours, you're dreaming if you think we can tank. Thus, I strongly recommend you consider carefully if you want a swerve drive next year, and no matter what, talk to people who have done it before, such as Bill Gold and Jim Gold on Sea Dawgs #258, who definitely can give you a good idea of what to do and what not to do with a swerve drive.