Independent swerve module that I designed some time after the 2012 Championships. This is my 3rd iteration of the design out of 4 (but I never rendered the final).
It is designed to be almost completely waterjet and stacked. It utilizes WCP gears in a shifting transmission (much like 973’s) with final speeds of approximately 16 and 6fps. Wheels are custom with a 3" diameter.
This was very close to production, but the team thought the better of it as it would be an inefficient use of our resources.
This looks truly amazing. Ive tried to convince my team to swerve drive but they always say no 
How much does a setup like that weigh? Also are you using a cim to drive it?
We did swerve last year (our rookie year) and it worked pretty well (I thought coming onto the team this past October & seeing it in action at Cow Town), but my team also said otherwise. I would suggest that you make this an off-season project as it requires so much time (which is what we did before our rookie build season).
From a drivers perspective, our Driver said that he could have probably utilized swerve better if he had more practice time (and we didn’t have to under go a second build season). Sure swerve is pretty cool (we saw a lot of people stopping by to see our module at regionals), but it also is kinda overkill depending on what you need to do.
If you have any questions, leave them in our thread and our mentor will get back to you.
Good luck to all who try Swerve!
-David
We used swerve for the first time last year… and I had to say that it took us 4 weeks to set up and ended up being fairly disadvangtious to us. We had alot of problems setting it up and then fine tuning it to fix the problems. We did not use a waterjet but i assume usuing that would save you so much more time than what happened to us. Swerve is truly an amazing drive system if it can be made properly. This year we are usuing a modified kitbot on steriods.
I apologize for the dumb question, but we’ve never done swerve drive before.
What stops the orange part that holds the wheel from grinding on the stationary part of the module?
Also, where do you source such a tiny piston?
There is a thrust bearing in between the wheel module and the gearbox. The tiny pistons are bimba pancake pistons and can be sourced from bimba or mcmaster.
Is the wheel carrier a single piece? I know on the revolution modules the side parts bolt on to a central body which saves a lot of machining time and cost. Otherwise brilliant design and an excellent render.
You can make the wheel carrier out of purchased square tube to eliminate the need to bolt it together.
I only see one motor, which appears to be driving the wheel. How are you rotating the module?
There is a window motor directly above the wheel, in between the plates, that would be responsible for rotation.
that is a great looking render too bad these were never made