MK4 Ilegal?

Technical Technical Discussion
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Hi everyone, our team s searching a good Swerve to buy to start to get the parts to the 2025 and we saw the MK4 Swerve Module, but we don’t understand if it is ilegal for the new 2024 rules about no more than 4 propultion motors, because we understand this MK4 works like a differential drive swerve, but still we have the doubt if it would be legal or not.

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Mk4’s are perfectly legal. We used them for the past two years, and they work great. They don’t work like differential swerve, which is banned due to the new propulsion rule, and uses the same exact system as other COTS options. The drive and steer motor are completely separate, and are not linked together in any way. The key difference between the MK4 and the MK4i is the inverted motors. COTS Swerve options on the SDS, West Coast Products, and REV website should all be perfectly legal.

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technically the rotation motor causes the wheel to spin about its axis, because coaxial swerve, and I could absolutely see at least one pedant RI get stuck on this. A slip ring swerve would be completely in the clear, lame slip ring rules notwithstanding.

Iirc SDS modules compensate for any weirdness that would cause in code by offsetting the wheel slightly, and it’s already negligible.

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Swerve orientation motors were explicitly mentioned as being excluded from this rule in the recent blog post:

“ This rule will not apply to motors that generate small amounts of thrust as a secondary or incidental feature, which include but are not limited to:

  • Motors that alter the alignment of a wheel in contact with the field surface (such as a swerve steering motor),”

See Motor Rule Changes for the 2024 Season for more details

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That doesn’t necessarily mean that all inspectors will pay attention to that part of it. He did say “pedant” RI–one that goes right by the letter of the rule, intent notes and intended applications be darned.

I would expect that somewhere, at least one inspector completely misses the rule and lets a 6-motor tank (or an H-drive) through, and another rules at least one swerve illegal based on the pedantic reading above. I would also expect that both rulings are overturned roughly 47 seconds after the respective LRIs are complained to.

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