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Unread 22-04-2009, 18:57
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Re: AM' swerve modules

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Originally Posted by HighLife View Post
There are many teams that don't have the ability to make their own serve modules. I think this would be a great way to even out the playing field.
Swerve is an advantage. This year my team found it be quite useful to have in tricky situations. Swerve bots, when turning or moving can more easily evade. When your wheels are actuated, it helped keep traction as opposed to skidding.

That said...most years I have observed that swerve doesn't offer as much of an advantage as it appears. I have seen "cool" swerve bots put to shame by skid steer bots with experienced driving. Swerve is also generally a little heavier than skid steer. This can take away from weight on the manipulator. Remember, you win when you score, and you score with your manipulator, not your drivetrain. Swerve is creative however and can win lots of awards. If people had modules made for them, they likely wouldn't get an award. Swerve is cool to toy with in the offseason, but if you look at the winning robots, they very rarely do they have swerve. (yes...Wildstang you are amazingly awesome). All I'm trying to say is that swerve will not really help all that much to make someone better, you are pretty much just as well of with skid steer. Teams with skid steer are no worse off than teams with swerve, so honestly I don't think giving people the ability to do swerve will help the playing field be evened. Swerve is a good learning experience when building and it gets awards, but the competitive edge just isn't really there. True swerve can do a little more than skid, but it can't really do as much as it appears to. (sorry for this rant, don't mean it against any teams with swerve, as there are some very good and competitive teams with swerve, it is more of a personal opinion. It's more that my team has this idea that our goal is to make as "cool" and complicated bot as possible and I think the coolest robot is the one that is simple and wins). Honestly, I don't think it would be a bad idea if AM made swerve modules, I think it'd be kind of cool to give more teams the option of doing swerve.
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Unread 22-04-2009, 18:00
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Re: AM' swerve modules

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Originally Posted by fuzzy1718 View Post
Somethings are better left off andymark. If AM came out with a swerve module then teams would learn little from putting it on their robot. In my opinion the less items used that are right off the shelf the better. If that is how most robots are built, what lessons are learn building it other than wether the product works or not. Just a thought.
There's always the option "some assembly required" Sell the components for the module, but not the assembled module itself, possibly a swerve drive kit, that way students are still assembling and learning how everything fits. However, I do agree with you, but it does teach teams to use the resources available to them...
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Unread 22-04-2009, 18:03
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Re: AM' swerve modules

At least to me, an entire swerve module is too much of a completed mechanism to sell directly to FRC teams.

A gearbox or wheel or hub or sprocket is fine, as there is still a lot of thought left to the teams on how to apply it to make it work. But selling entire (or even partial) mechanisms or assemblies takes too much thought away from teams and begins to turn FRC into a "plug and chug" competition.

Swerve is one of those things that you really need to have the resources available to do it right, from the wheel modules, to the frame, to the software to control it. If your team really wants to do swerve but doesn't have these resources, recruit a local machine shop, company, university, or fellow FIRST team to help you, as you'll learn a lot more in the process.

That being said, there are plenty of very successful robots in FRC that use plain 'ol skid steer drive trains.
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Unread 22-04-2009, 18:12
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Re: AM' swerve modules

I agree with what Art said about swerve being over the line of what I think teams should be able to buy.

In addition to that I feel that AM carrying a swerve module would lead to almost as many robots with bad or non-functional drivetrains as robots with improved drivetrains. There is a lot more to building a swerve drive than just the design of the module. I think that AM carrying a swerve module would lead many teams to think that swerve is now "easy" and try and implement it without having or devoting the necessary resources to make it effective.

EDIT: Looks like Bob beat me to a very similar message
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