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I agree with most all of the above comments, but wanted to add that if you are that limited on space, a good plain bearing(also called bushings) will work most of the time. My team used bronze bushings on the drive axles one year and had no issues with them. The increase in friction did not seem to be a major issue either as the loads on these bearings is pretty low.
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We used these when we rebuilt our 2009 shooter for our demo bot (after 3 years of heavy use it was beginning to fall apart). The side loads on this are not very high but the speeds are really fast (we have ours in a "loose" mounting with lots of grease); they have held up pretty well through at least 30 hours of operation of the shooter since installed last fall. The only thing that I would worry about is excess wear to the bearing, shaft, or wherever the bearing is mounted.
Again its really up to the designer, all of the bearings (if used properly) can perform well enough for FIRST robotics purposes.