Swerve in 2000?

FIRST General Forum
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Hi, today I was watching some OG FRC competition videos, specifically the 2000 Eistein field, and at the chief delphi robot I saw something weird, it looks like some type of swerve drive, 17 years before the “first” swerve models.

Here are some of the videos of 47s robot:
The eistein field game where I first saw the “swerve”: https://youtu.be/MMt9eXu2jN8?si=8CxPThYNbuAm4PNL
some other videos where the CD robot appear: https://youtu.be/kVO7KE5jrHQ?si=Qcfuk4wq8XRjpBNu
https://youtu.be/DrKwqu9-DPI?si=UT0IyZFA9Cz7e9Ny
https://youtu.be/pSWdRt8UdDs?si=qJ8VXvZToqfw7K9e

If someone knows something about this robot and would like to explain how that drivetrain works I would be thankful. :wink:

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Why do you think the first swerve happened in 2017?

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Spectrum has this great video talking about some of the early history of swerve drives in FRC.

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Screenshot_20231212-211122
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The biggest thing since wheels

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Here’s some decent close-up pictures of the CD 2000 robot:

And their first ever swerve in 1998:

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Chief Delphi used a 2 module drive system, using essentially a typical motor per situation, but they had castors as their other points of contact. I heard it called “Shopping Cart” swerve.

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because 2017 was the year that 2910 made their first swerve drive train

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I think there was a swerve on Einstein in 2017.

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Bomb Squad, FRC 16

Ran swerve since the early 2000s.

But they did not invent it. Credit for that goes to the team that started this forum, and their great mentor Dr. Joe Johnson.

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There is lot more swerve in the world than 2910 - relative newcomers.

As far as COTS is concerned here are some earlier modules, (there was probably earlier COTS than Revolution and wild swerve, idk of the website archives to pull them up on though)

https://www.team221.com/order.php

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thanks to everyone who comment in my topic, I’m rookie in FRC and part of a really young team too. I really like to know more about the history of FRC and first in general. :wink:

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If I remember correctly I had a conversation with an alum from 358 talking about using 3D printed swerve modules around ~2010-2013. Said they had to swap the modules basically every match. Don’t recall specifics about it and might have the years wrong but yeah swerve definitely existed pre-2017

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swerve is swerve…

Now what do you call 525’s 2016 solution? it is not swerve and sure as heck isn’t tank. I think “pallet jack” is appropriate.

edit:

this configuration || is a tank wheel. 0 is a swerve. viewed top down:



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    0
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I know 221s module existed pre 2017, but is it safe to say 2910s is the first feasable COTs swerve?

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2910 definitely took mass production and normalization to the next level. There were teams running the revolution/wild modules when I was a student, but we are taking maybe 1% of teams (small sample size of a few regionals in MN & WI)

Here is the first 221 page archive with revolution and wild swerve on it. circa 2011. There is a big gap in the record between 2009 and 2011, but somewhere in there it was being distributed through them.

Also shout out to Mars Wars for years of swerve development. They seem to be overshadowed by 16 in the 2010’s for a lot of unique designs and playing with the envelope.

2481 has done some more wild stuff in more recent years

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I know that 1533 Triple Strange won the very first FNC DCMP in 2016 with their own team-built swerve drive. I’m pretty sure they had swerve in 2015 too. Both of those robots went on to compete at Worlds.

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When was the first unicorn swerve?

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Went digging on their website and found pics. Not the highest quality images, but it was their 2015 bot, you can see that the gears are 3d printed for it. They won the Excellence in Engineering Award at the SBPLI Regional for it, too. Here’s an article about it from their school district at the time: Robotics Team Achieve Excellence Award

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Obligatory: pic: 3928 Swerve Module

3928-swerve-2012
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190 did it in 1999… never going to learn any younger :slight_smile:

image

image

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