[Mr. Lim]

I'll propose a turnability metric:

Angular Speed / Linear Speed

where:

Angular Speed is the max degrees/sec in an on-axis, in-place spin.
Linear Speed is the top speed in feet/sec in a straight line.

Both measured on standard FRC carpet, of course.

I'd be interested in hearing from some experienced multi-speed gearbox teams about a metric like this. Lower gears would likely produce a better turnability score than a higher gear, but I've had drivers who simply "like how the robot turns" in high gear much better. Have you seen this as well?

This leads me to believe there is such thing as a robot that "turns just right," which is supported by the discussion here regarding having too much overshoot.

It'd be neat to quantify what the "perfect turnability" is for different FRC tasks - traversing the field to get game pieces in 2011 vs spinning on axis to line up a shooter in 2012. Are they different enough to justify having two gears?