Drivetrain where motors are on the same axis as the chassis sides??

[Clem1640]

Yes. Our Pivot drive design does this.

[Racer26]

Try to find some pictures of 1075 from the offseason 2006 thru offseason 2008 era. We had a tank drive setup that placed the CIMs inside the belt. they drove a shaft running the length of the belt, and through a AM shifter, into a bevel gear, driving a chain into the cog that drove the belts. If you can find pictures from Kettering Kickoff 2007 or 2008, you'll have the best chance of seeing how we did it.

Late in the 08 offseason (for brunswick eruption), we switched to a 6wd drop center built on the same platform (ie. any of our 06-08 bots could interchange drive units.) For 09 we built a 2+2 swerve, with 4 modes, and for 2010, we built DS Swerve (FRC's first, and only, to my knowledge, invertable swerve drive [photo here: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/35499]).

[JamesCH95]

In 2003 team 95 used worm gears with the CIM motors and some 45deg helical gears with Bosch drill motors in our swerve drive. The helical gears were pretty okay, the worm gears were awfully inefficient.

To do it again I would use bevel gears, though we've never had a space issue with a conventional tank style drive.