Swerve has made FRC faster, more versatile, and more exciting.  But be ready.  Maintenance, pitfalls, weaknesses, cleanliness, and organization of the swerve-o-sphere to keep these gems in top shape without pulling your hair out.  Routines and troubleshooting, lots of tips and spreadsheets, some team focused games to learn the swerve, our Swerve Tool kit recommendations, and more in this student led hands-on presentation.  Max Swerve and to a much lesser extent MK4i swerves will be focused on for this one. 

SDS MK4i assembly link

Notes:   We have worked on maintenance on these delicate swerves a lot.  We have found that for us, it is good to be consistent and set times to pull the modules free.  We disassemble them one at a time using the assembly guides, and separate out all of the metal parts, using rags and shop towels to wipe them clean.  Next we then drop them in a stainless steel pan in an acetone or mineral spirit bath for 15 minutes.  After they have soaked off most of the grime, we carefully pull them free, dry them off,  re-threadlock bolts,  add superglue to the key if it has come free, and grease all of the teeth.  We use the assembly guides to reassemble.  Remember to wait to tighten threadlocked bolts until after the threadlock has had a chance to set, and wait 24 hours to use the swerve after that for the threadlocker to set completely.

PLAY GAMES TO BUILD UP SPEED AND KNOW HOW:

1. Assembly can be a game.  Try printing out the assembly steps from the assembly guide and cutting them apart.  Then have students put them back in the correct order.

2. Play BINGO as you assemble one.  Each student can have a card with the steps in random order and as you complete a step, they get closer to bingo.  

3. Have students guess the possible maintenance issues based on what the drive is doing or not doing.  Examples include aluminum shavings in the teeth, a tooth sheared free, rubber wheel or tread ripping, zip tie shred in the gearing, loose bolt, seized gear, etc.

4. Have students use the assembly guides to create your own zip loc or bag of tools needed for swerve.  We keep ours together with the swerve bolts for easy access.  We also have created carbingers with all of the wrenches, alley keys, and bits for each size bolt as a grab and go option in addition to extra copies in the swerve drive fasteners.  

5. Students can use the assembly guides to create their own swerve maintenance tub.  Cleaning supplies, tools for disassembly, grease, superglue, threadlocker, spare bolts for each assembly, tread, wheels, etc.