Strategic Uses of Swerve Drive

[Ken Patton]

I think Josh's advice to you is pretty good.

My opinion (and while we have not done swerve in any of our 13 years so far, we did do active steering on the drive in 2 of those years) is that it is very game-specific. Some games - and the mechanisms that go with 'em - might lend themselves to a swerve design.

One example of that was Wildstang's 2003 bot which could get on the top of the ramp and then move sideways to block their opponent. Another example was Wildstang 2005 which could do a "drive-by" pickup of tetrahedrons from the side of the field.

The point is that both of those functions were highly game- or field-dependent. And the people who swerved could think of ways to use it to their advantage. Maybe even simplify the gathering/scoring mechanisms too.

The other side of the coin are the teams that don't put the complexity in the drive, go with a simpler drive, but figure out how to re-orient the robot to acquire objects and then score them. It might take more practice for them to get great at it, but then they might get more practice if they are up and running sooner. Again it'll be game dependent.

I admire the guts and talent - and the drivers! - of those teams that do swerve systems...

Ken