Strategic Uses of Swerve Drive

[Josh Goodman]

A couple of things as far as implimentation go. As far as actually building the mechanism, dont try it out during build season. A local team decided to do that this year, and they spent most of their build season on the Mill building and rebuilding parts. Test building/programming a swerve makes a great summer/preseason activity. If you don't try it out first, you will run into many problems and, imo, not as good robot due to lack of time in build season.

So my suggestion is this. Get a group together and figure out how the things work. Build it, program it, get a full fledged working prototype (use the KoP materials even). Then when you see the game, evaluate your necessity/pros and cons. If the game screams out Crab Drive...DO IT! You now have the experience and capability. If you think "Well....we don't really need it, but it would be cool to have", it's all up to your team, but I would say save the weight for the other mechanisms. As many people have said before, there are tons of drivetrain styles out there with less weight, time and cost.

You want something in between? Try Mechanum Wheels.....they're pretty awesome too.