pic: Team 2220's Swerve Drive Chasis

[JVN]

Hey,
Good start! Just a friendly word of warning: a swerve drive takes a LOT of effort to get right, especially on the first try. You WILL spend most of the season fighting this design to get it running right, and to keep it running right. You'll spend so much time fighting with it, your driver won't get to use any of the advantages a swerve drive would provide... I promise you this.

I BEG you to not try to use this design without building it in the pre-season and testing it. If you're putting lots of resources (effort) into your drivetrain you're not going to have as much effort available for your mechanism -- the mechanism is where the magic is, and what makes you successful on the field.

Build a simple, reliable, drivetrain, and spend your engineering on the rest of your robot. You'll be much happier. If the summer comes along and you still want to build a swerve drive, try it then.

If you don't have the resources to prototype it in the summer, you might not want to be attempting it anyways. Again, we all have limited resources during the build season -- spend the ones you have on things that will have the biggest payoff...

$0.02
-John