Swerve has been a pretty significant advantage in both rapid react and charged up, and looking at the game this year it looks like that is going to still be the case this year. Some people across various threads have been talking about how swerve is especially good in these past seasons, and that implies that in some games tank would be better. To me, a good swerve drive just seems advantageous all around regardless of the game design. Has there been games in the past where tank drive is advantageous over swerve or at least is up to the same level as swerve? And what aspects of a game would influence which drive train is better and how much of an advantage it is?
The first thing that comes to mind is 2016 where there were significant obstacles on the field.
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Fine holonomic alignment adjustments.
Last year you needed to be able to shift your end effector slightly left or right to be able to place the game pieces quickly.
2022 you did not need swerve if you had a turret, but swerve was a nice to have not need to have.
I actually think 2024 for tasks other than the amp a tank drive will do just fine.
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You didn’t need swerve or a turret in 2022. We only had swerve and used a limelight to orient the whole robot towards the goal, but you can do that same orientation with tank drive. Having a turret would be useful in some scenarios, though, such as still being able to lock onto the target while actively being pinned against the wall. Doesn’t require mobility from the robot.
Scoring in 2023 was much easier with swerve, and in general we’ve found swerve to be helpful for avoiding defense.This year I agree you could definitely do fine with tank drive though.
You don’t have to tell me, I tried that in 2022. 1102’s in season robot was a tank drive without a turret in 2022, and we had a much worse time than when we did nothing but put a swerve drive on it for the off-season and won a local event.
Swerve drive is going to be superior in pretty much every game aside from 2016. They’re easier to assemble, and the programming is more and more off the shelf.
The agility and maneuverability of a swerve drive is unmatched.
You can win local events on tank, but to compete at a high level you need to be on swerve.
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You could intake much faster in 2022 with a swerve due to being able to drive straight to a ball whenever it exited the hub. A 6wd would required awkward re-orientation go after any cargo which is why they performed much worse than swerves.
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Swerve had an inherent advantage in 2022 but to say that tank was “much worse” by default compared to swerve is revisionist history.
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Swerve, as others said, allows for fine adjustments, and linear drive and rotation at the same time, which makes faster trajectories. Also at the end of the game you can put a note in a trap, get off the chain and let the next robot o the same, and have two or three robots on the same chain, while having each of them scoring trap note.
Can you please explain why obstacles on the field would make tank drive more competitive?
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First off, I believe there were some teams in 2016 that used swerve drive, although I do not know which teams those were. The main advantage for tank over swerve in 2016 was the fact that tank could handle driving over the field elements much more easily than a swerve drive (additionally there were very few COTS swerve options if any in 2016 so there were already very few teams capable of swerve). You should check out the game animation for 2016 so that you can see exactly what I’m talking about. An additional reason was that many teams used pneumatic wheels to help them negotiate the obstacles, these don’t really fit that well on a swerve drive. I wasn’t in FRC in 2016 so I’m sure someone else can do a much better job explaining, but that is my understanding. Generally speaking however, swerve is always going to be better than tank (assuming you have the resources to do it, and the field is pretty open, like the past couple of years.)
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swerve is technically better than tank in every single factor, but especially in this game i wouldnt say that tank is useless at all
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I don’t think the drivebase really defines how good a robot is. It certainly has impact, but what really matters is what is happening above the drivebase.
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Tank (or similar) allows a wider gap between wheels, I’m thinking especially 2015 with stacking totes internally or under-bumper intakes this year. Swerve wheels needing to swivel will almost certainly take more space.
First, I’m pretty sure tank is usually lighter which is better. Second, tank has more ability to be customized to assist in getting over obstacles. You’re going to have a harder time high-centering yourself with 8x6 inch wheels than with 4x4inch wheels. Larger wheels are also going to have larger maximum obstacle heights that they can clear. For almost all games swerve is still going to be a competitive advantage, but that doesn’t mean there are no trade offs.
Is it always better to be lighter? Why?
well mostly speed, but keep in mind that lighter = easier to push around. Also, swerve drive is still comparably fast
It’s always better for the parts that need to be in a specific place to be lighter. You can always add ballast, but starting lighter gives you more weight for building the rest of your robot. It also gives you more control over where the weight is.
Eh fair enough. Haven’t had to worry about weight in years though, never built a robot that needed every pound. Certainly built a lot that should’ve been heavier.
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