Coaxial Swerve Drives

VEX IQ General Discussion General Discussion
1

It’s easy to make a swerve drive, just build a pivoting wheel with a motor and you are done. Some issues around supplying power / control to the motor that is driving the wheel. To get around that you can build a Coaxial Swerve Drive. Both motors sit above the swerve wheel. Some form of gearing drives a shaft that goes down the pivot point to drive the wheel. A number of successful teams have Coaxial Swerve Drive, they are very nimble.

I came across this Lego swerve drive pic: LEGO Coaxial Swerve Module - CD-Media: Photos - Chief Delphi and thought it was pretty cool. I’m thinking of building one, but having a hard time with the upper support gear. I’m thinking of just drilling a hole in one of the large gears to pass the shaft through, but thought I’d throw it out here to see if anyone has any better ideas.

2

Hi Foster,

Orbit, one of the new 2015 HEXBUG VEX Robotics toys sets, contains some parts that will be useful for building a coaxial swerve out of standard VEX IQ parts. This set includes two different methods of transferring coaxial rotary motion, and would be useful for creating a coaxial swerve drive.

The first, is a new 36 Tooth Dog Gear, which has a center round hole in the 36 tooth gear. The other is a new XL Turntable Outer Housing and XL Turntable 36 Tooth Ring Gear Bushing; these can be assembled together into a turntable. A photo of these new parts is attached:

The 2015 HEXBUG VEX Robotics kits will be available in retail stores this fall.

Regards,

3

Super, that looks like it will fit the need. All I need now is the Great Pumpkin to drop 4 in my Trick-or-treat bag!