pic: Team 221 LLC. - Wild Swerve Module

[fuzzy1718]

Too all of you wo keep saying "mine your own metal, make this from scratch yada yada yada" everyone is just trying to say where do we draw the line. If you use the that arguement all you are seeing is black and white, not the gray area in between.
Yes, the GDC prevents robot in a box, but the problem is where do we draw the line on the words "complete mechanism?" You could turn this into a shooter rather easy, but how much of that shooter is already there for you? 1/2... 2/3?

Team 221 this is in no way ment to sound ofensive to you, but when you guys offer a product, simply offer parts not a complete anything. For instance with your guy's chassis why sell the whole rail, just sell the parts seperatly and let teams figure it out. Not only could you guys profit more but it would appease both sides of the arguement. You would be selling the whole thing, but teams could still build it mixing your stuff with others.

Just a thought, hope fully I don't get tared and feathered for it.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by fuzzy1718

Too all of you wo keep saying "mine your own metal, make this from scratch yada yada yada" everyone is just trying to say where do we draw the line. If you use the that arguement all you are seeing is black and white, not the gray area in between.
Yes, the GDC prevents robot in a box, but the problem is where do we draw the line on the words "complete mechanism?" You could turn this into a shooter rather easy, but how much of that shooter is already there for you? 1/2... 2/3?

Team 221 this is in no way ment to sound ofensive to you, but when you guys offer a product, simply offer parts not a complete anything. For instance with your guy's chassis why sell the whole rail, just sell the parts seperatly and let teams figure it out. Not only could you guys profit more but it would appease both sides of the arguement. You would be selling the whole thing, but teams could still build it mixing your stuff with others.

Just a thought, hope fully I don't get tared and feathered for it.

I won't tar and feather you, I'll disagree though.

Just as an example I will use a Joe Johnson's NBD and show what percentage of a mobility system it is compared to the percentage for these mechanisms.

First I have to define what a mobility system is. For the sake of definition I will call it the bare minimum necessary for a robot to move. This means 2 driven wheels and 2 omni wheels, a chassis, associated electronics etc.

TEAM 221 LLC (note that Team 221 is not actually an FRC team, it came out of a FIRST team that Anthony was involved with in the past and is no longer associated with FIRST other than selling parts designed for use in the competition)

2 x CIM motors
2 x swerve modules
2 x omni wheels
Kitbot frame from AndyMark (or IFI depending on preference)
CRio
PD board
Digital breakout board
2 x Victor or Jaguar
Wire
2 x Potentiometer
Programming to control the swerve drive
2 x KOP Wheels


NBD

2 x CIM motors
2 x Dewalt drill transmissions
2 x omni wheels
Kitbot frame from AndyMark (or IFI depending on preference)
CRio
PD board
Digital breakout board
2 x Victor or Jaguar
Wire
Default Programming
2 x KOP Wheels


Seems to me that the Swerve modules are not a significant portion of the drive system. You still have to wire them, still have to assemble them, still have to mount them. Not only that but you have to program them which everyone who does swerve says is the difficult part. Now, in my opinion this is a pretty crappy use of the swerve modules but it DOES show what is needed in a basic mobility system. I could probably assign weights to all of this but they would be highly subjective. Instead I will bring attention to the fact that the Team 221 Swerve actually requires MORE parts than a bare bones set up using Dewalts.

NBD does require you to make some modifications to the Dewalt gearbox but these are all detailed in the white paper so I count this as roughly the same as assembling something based on instructions from an educational experience, I feel this will be the sticking point for many people. Which drive train do people learn more from? To put it bluntly, Team 221 has the distinct advantage here. Programming a swerve drive to work reliably and simply is challenging from a programming point of view. NBD has the benefit of pulling the default code down from FIRST and you are up and running with minor if any changes. Mechanically speaking both teams would learn roughly the same amount assuming neither opened up their parts and toyed with them to figure out how they worked. Electronically the advantage goes to Team 221 again, they get to learn to wire up a potentiometer (or encoder). For these reasons I have to say that the NBD white paper constitutes a higher percentage of a complete mobility system than the Team 221 swerve modules. Furthermore, NBD actually causes students to learn less when assembling it.

Now, my disclaimers.

This is my OPINION, you are welcome to disagree with it and encouraged to debate it but under no circumstances are you allowed to disrespect me or my opinion based solely on your disagreement. I am more than willing to respond to someone who is willing to show me where I went wrong (in their opinion) but will be very angry if you respond by calling me an idiot or any such childish retorts.

[s_forbes]

Nice product, I hope it has the chance to make it onto some FRC robots in the future!

We're one of those teams that doesn't really have enough resources to manufacture our own swerve modules. I'm sure there are other teams like us that would jump on the chance to build a swerve system now that most of the difficult manufacturing is out of the way. There is still way (waaaay) more work to go into a successful swerve drive of course, but it's nice to have one of the tough to build parts readily available.

Our drivetrains have been slowly getting simpler and easier to build over the years, so I doubt we are likely to purchase some of these. It's great that they're finally out there, though.

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by fuzzy1718

Too all of you wo keep saying "mine your own metal, make this from scratch yada yada yada" everyone is just trying to say where do we draw the line. If you use the that arguement all you are seeing is black and white, not the gray area in between.
Yes, the GDC prevents robot in a box, but the problem is where do we draw the line on the words "complete mechanism?" You could turn this into a shooter rather easy, but how much of that shooter is already there for you? 1/2... 2/3?

Team 221 this is in no way ment to sound ofensive to you, but when you guys offer a product, simply offer parts not a complete anything. For instance with your guy's chassis why sell the whole rail, just sell the parts seperatly and let teams figure it out. Not only could you guys profit more but it would appease both sides of the arguement. You would be selling the whole thing, but teams could still build it mixing your stuff with others.

Just a thought, hope fully I don't get tared and feathered for it.

First of all, Team 221 LLC, AndyMark, or any other manufacturer of such products, do not only appeal to the FRC audience. They are robotics technology manufacturers and should always be remembered as a BUSINESS first.

I don't know how you draw the argument that they can make more money by selling parts, I'd rather pay a little(or a lot) extra if I'm in a time crunch (6 weeks anyone?) and need a swerve module at my door at 3am on a Tuesday (happens to all of us).

I wouldn't tar and feather you Josh, as you've been flamed before on here, but definitely look at things from multiple perspectives. If I were the companies in question, this is the exact direction I would move in; selling full modules. Team 221 and AndyMark are two companies RC and I look up to because, for AndyMark at least since 221 is new, they have a great established business model for the robotics technology world. Even look at VEX, they sell full arms now because that's how you run a business. Just look at all the angles of the situation. Also, if I were them I really wouldn't bother trying to appease both parties of the argument, the one that likes what the company is selling would be my target audience at hand (consumers) and the others would later on potentially see what they've failed to benefit from.

+0.02

I love what's going on with VEX, Team 221, and AndyMark. Keep it up guys. You may not know it, but you really do inspire those of us who may be a little more business minded than mechanical or have the ability to combine both skills, kids like me.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by fuzzy1718

Just a thought, hope fully I don't get tared and feathered for it.

No tar, no feathers. Dang

Hmmm - How about pitchforks and torches???

Originally Posted by fuzzy1718

Too all of you wo keep saying "mine your own metal, make this from scratch yada yada yada" everyone is just trying to say where do we draw the line. If you use the that arguement all you are seeing is black and white, not the gray area in between.

Quite the opposite, all we are seeing is gray. Unless you are going to reinvent the universe on your own, everything in this dicussion is a shade of gray (That is the point of the Carl Sagan statement).

Some might say that a black and white opinion is one that says selling the modules is a bad idea; instead of expressing that selling the modules has both pluses and minuses; and then perhaps expressing a reason or two for why the minuses outweigh the pluses

Blake