AndyMark to Distribute Swerve Drive Specialties Products

FIRST General Forum
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All,

I’m happy to pass along this press release from AndyMark. AndyMark to Distribute Swerve Drive Specialties Products.pdf (122.8 KB)

Here is the text from the release:

AndyMark to Distribute Swerve Drive Specialties Products

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

July 13, 2022 - AndyMark and Swerve Drive Specialties (SDS) are pleased to announce an agreement where AndyMark, Inc. will distribute Swerve Drive Specialties’ popular swerve modules beginning this summer. SDS Owner, Patrick Woolfenden, and AndyMark President, Andy Baker, are both committed to ensuring these quality products are available for the FIRST Robotics Competition market.

“AndyMark is excited to add the Swerve Drive Specialties swerve modules to our product offerings,” said Andy Baker. “SDS modules are proven within the FIRST community to be one of the most effective and dependable swerve modules available. With this agreement, AndyMark customers now have the convenience of purchasing these modules from our website along with their other favorite AndyMark products,” he explained.

“This relationship combines SDS’s best-in-class swerve modules with AndyMark’s world class order fulfillment and customer service,” said Woolfenden.

SDS was created in the fall of 2018 by Patrick Woolfenden. Woolfenden was student on FRC Team 2910. As an alumnus, Woolfenden has volunteered as a mentor on FRC Team 2910 since 2017.

“Swerve Drive Specialties was created to provide FIRST Robotics Competition teams the same swerve modules that Team 2910 was using when they had success in 2018,” explained Woolfenden.

Swerve Drive Specialties’ mission is to provide FRC teams with top level, battle tested swerve modules, explained Woolfenden. These modules will continue to be made by SDS and will also be available directly from Swerve Drive Specialties.

AndyMark, Inc. was formed in 2004 by Andy Baker and Mark Koors, mentors on FRC Team 45 at the time, to provide quality COTS products to the FIRST Robotics Competition market not previously available. Since that time, AndyMark has grown to employ approximately 35 full time employees and with over 3500 products on their ecommerce site.

Customers will be able to preorder by early August the popular SDS units, MK4 and MK4i with the gear and motors options now offered on the SDS website. AndyMark will also offer these modules either assembled or unassembled. For more information go to AndyMark.com.

We at AndyMark are all excited to work closely with the team at SDS to provide great products to the FIRST community. More information can be found at this AndyMark web page. Please reply with questions and input.

Sincerely,
Andy B.

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Do you have a timeline of when AndyMark is expecting to ship their first modules?

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Here is our current broad plan:

  • early August - Begin taking pre-orders
  • early September - Receive shipment from SDS, fulfill pre-orders, begin standard AndyMark order processing (receive and fulfill the order if products are in stock)
  • early October - Receive shipment from SDS, fulfill orders
  • early November - Receive shipment from SDS, fulfill orders

Size and frequency of future bulk orders will depend on the demand during August-October.

If we see a high demand during pre-orders, we will work to increase our bulk buys for future months.

Sincerely,
Andy B.

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Does AM and SDS have plans to increase manufacturing capabilities? Aside from parts needed from overseas (if domestic vendors can’t compete on price), how’s SDS going to meet demand?

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What does this mean for the future of AM swerve and steer modules?

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I’m really excited to be working with the AndyMark. Thank you to Andy and his team for the opportunity! One great thing about this partnership is that teams will now have opportunity to use the KOP drive base opt out voucher to help pay for their SDS swerve modules.

Increased manufacturing capabilities is part of the plan. The big news is that SDS has just moved out of my garage and into a small industrial unit. We also just received our second Brother Speedio. Both machines were rigged in last Friday. We are already up and running with the old mill and should be in full production with the new one by the end of the week. A couple of full time CNC operators are working for me this summer. It’s still going to take a few months to clear the backlog, but I’m dedicated to making this happen. Thank you to all of our customers who are enabling this dream to become reality.

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I suppose this marks the beginning of the end for Swerve n’ Steer? Glad to see the partnership; this should definitely help the reliability of distribution for these very in-demand parts.

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f5a

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Our plan is to keep selling them until our component parts go out of stock. Once that happens, if there continues to be a demand for this flavor of swerve module, then we will consider continuing the product. If the demand is low, it will be obsoleted.

It’s cool to see the development of this technology. We came out with the Swerve & Steer in the winter of 2014-2015. It’s been a successful product, with some world champions using it as their dependable drivetrain. During recent years, other COTS modules have become available with the SDS versions being our favorite.

Andy B.

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Does this mean SDS parts will also be sold through Studica in Canada? This would be great for cross border shipping issues.

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If Canadian teams are interested please contact one of our sales reps and we will look into placing a bulk pre-order if possible.

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Huge congrats Patrick!
Now most importantly what are your plans with your garage now that you are no longer running a full blown machine shop out of it?

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R&D? Diff swerve development?

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I presume Miata parking. :slight_smile:

-Nick

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I mean, I imagine the garage machine shop is still there, but is free to be used on other things. One usually doesn’t just dismantle their home shop.

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They do when they have a Brother Speedio in it dedicated to the production of swerve modules :joy:

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Congratulations! Those mills look awesome on your floor!

this is really exciting for those teams that want to swerve but have to follow a strict purchasing process.

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Does anything change regarding the backorders already placed directly with SDS? Will those be fulfilled by SDS or AndyMark?

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The post above from Andy regarding bulk orders would seem to suggest AndyMark is only a reseller of SDS modules, not taking over shipping/fulfilment entirely.

See Mr_V’s post below for the exact quotes about this.

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See above

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