Gearless Steering

Do we need gears to have a steering system?

As I mentioned in my IR Turret post, the drivetrain I built for it needed a steering system, but I did not have any usable gears. Instead of giving up or waiting to order parts, I found and replicated this simple desigon the internet that doesn’t require any gears at all! It is not perfect, but it works surprisingly well for a robot its size.

The nice thing about this approach is that it is very simple to build and easy to understand. There are fewer parts to break, and if something goes wrong it is obvious what to fix. Note to future self: sometimes not having the right parts forces you into a solution that is actually better than what you originally planned.