Who is using swerve for aerial assist and why

[TucoSalamanc]

Originally Posted by animenerdjohn

Please stop encouraging this

I am not sure why everyone is discouraging this. I believe this whole conspiracy thing is totally fake, however, no one can deny that it isn't teaching good principles. If teams are building at 75% weight, which many are, they are going to have a lot better time during the last week or so once they realize there is no endgame.

Having 20-30 pounds at the end to add support, add weights to balance, and still have a functioning robot will make crunch week a lot easier. The Team will be less stressed, judges will have an easier time, and you won't be cutting zipties to drop 1/10 lbs like we had to. Let people be misguided, it is making better, more flexible, teams.

[Keegbot]

Our team is heavily considering an octocanum drive where we can use the mecanum drive to maneuver ourselves into position to catch/chase the balls and use 4 normal wheels when we need to line up to shoot and not be pushed around. I'm not sure how many people have considered this because I haven't seen it mentioned yet.

[Foster]

Originally Posted by Gdeaver

If you have not been playing with a swerve test bed the last month, then swerve is not for you. For teams that have done the prototyping it's still a soul searching decision. We are going with swerve again this year with some tweaks. Mill will probably start up on Thursday. The rush is on.

And finally a game made for swerve! Looking forward to seeing what the value engineering process does this year. And if you programming team makes the advances this year the way they did last year, it will be one sweet setup.

Now the focus is on how to deal with the ball and save room for the UN-announced end game.

You forgot the for the humor impaired....

[David Guzman]

Originally Posted by techtiger1

... we are going with 8 wheels...

That 8 wheel swerve is going to be mad sweet!!!

[avanboekel]

Watch some of 16, 2481, or 2451's matches. If there ever is a year where swerve makes sense, this is it.

[Tyler2517]

You can watch some of ours to for defense

[ekapalka]

I feel that any team capable of designing, manufacturing, programming, and driving a swerve drive-train should do so if the weight limit allows for it. That being said, there's not very many prepared to be in that category at the beginning of competition every year, which is why teams need to develop those capabilities outside of competition (which apparently takes quite some time)

[Canon reeves]

If you have ever attempted to play defense on team 16's wicked swerve drive, them you will realize how useful it is, especially in this game. the ability to orient yourself to the ball is great, where as a tank drive robot has to turn, the swerve allows them to just scoot over. But it also depends on your design plans for the game, I know a team that did swerve last year, and could've done it this year, decided to go with a design that worked for them but was heavy so they decided not to use it. Everything is custom to your team in a sense, what works for our team, may not work for another.

[lynca]

Its interesting to look back and see who used swerve this year.

The Swerve list:
16
368
1717
2067
2481
2517
2936

I might be missing a few teams...

[Meredith Novak]

Originally Posted by lynca

Its interesting to look back and see who used swerve this year.

The Swerve list:
16
368
1717
2067
2481
2517
2936

I might be missing a few teams...

2451, Pwnage from IL has a very nice swerve...won Midwest with it.

[CENTURION]

Originally Posted by lynca

Its interesting to look back and see who used swerve this year.

The Swerve list:
16
368
1717
2067
2481
2517
2936

I might be missing a few teams...

Originally Posted by Meredith Novak

2451, Pwnage from IL has a very nice swerve...won Midwest with it.

Don't forget 2481! They won WI with a very nice swerve drive.

[Tim Lehmann4967]

Add 2767 Stryke Force to that list.

[Gdeaver]

And 1640

[TheHolyHades1]

1640 was the only one using swerve at the MAR Championships and I was thoroughly impressed. Combine that with a very accurate shooter and experienced drivers and you've got a great combination

[page2067]

I have a question for swerve users this year:

I am interested in how many swerve users this year are 1) 4 wheel independent or not, and 2 ) how many are field-centric (using a gyro) or not and 3) and if 4 wheel independent: use 4 PID's (for steering) vs. 8 PID's (for steering and speed control), or other?

For us (2067, Apple Pi) we are 4 wheel independent, and field-centric and use only 4 PIDs finding that similar to when we used Meccanum in 2011 that careful mechanical set-up mitigates the need for speed control. We have been quite pleased with this set up so far. Though have run into issues of gyro (KOP) failure after strong hits (g-forces) (are there better Gyros that can take more g forces?) - this has not been an issue before this year - likely a reflection on the level of robot interaction this year vs. past few, any suggestions on improvements there (gyro's) are welcome.

Though we also believe that without field-centric steering, swerve drive does not buy itself in, however we know that teams we admire have different views that we would like to understand better.

For those interested in driver control preferences our driver prefers a 2 joystick set up with strafe on a KOP Logitech joystick in his left hand and a Logitech Extreme twist stick in his right hand for rotation control.

Also I am surprised, that at least on this thread, it would appear that fewer than 20 teams (<0.1%) have swerve?