As many of you know, for last year’s season SOTAbots team 2557 designed and manufactured our own shifting swerve modules. This year, we aim to improve on the design with our second model - the i2. This module is lighter, stronger and more compact than the 2022 version.
In the 2022 game Rapid React, our original design proved itself extremely successful, vastly exceeding our expectations. The two speeds helped us to get up to speed quickly, and the lower gear allowed us to play the defense card if we ever needed to.
Some people ask, “why choose shifting swerve when conventional swerve modules are proven and tested?” we chose this route for three main reasons:
#1: It provides an engineering challenge for our team, as well as an opportunity to learn and innovate in the process.
#2: In testing we have found that our shifting swerve enables faster acceleration and higher top speeds, as well as more low end torque, which allows for an aggressive defense.
#3: Shifting swerve is super cool. Designing and manufacturing a unique module completely in house sets us apart, and is a point of pride for our team.
When accelerating and changing directions we have never observed traction issues. Yes, tread wears down fast, but we are using a more durable tread from thriftybot that has been working great.
Just to link this in (not looking for any conversation on it):
This has been talked about in other threads, but there is a lot of nuance with the types of roughtop; “black” (Neoprene) or “blue” (Nitrile) really doesn’t mean a lot in the FRC durability context. The lamination process, adhesives, fiber backing, etc. are different within the “black” or “blue” product families. The FRC vendors seem to do a pretty good job sourcing the durable stuff for our FRC applications, but if you source it from elsewhere or something changes there can be issues (as TTB discovered initially).
Just a reminder (hasn’t been stated yet): weight distribution on the bot will have a big impact on tread wear and in some cases and impact overall watts “into the carpet”.
