[TheMadCADer]

Looking good, I'd like to see the more compact design as well.

As far as the gearing change, that depends entirely on the game the robot's playing, and what role it's playing in that game.

Looking at a game like 2010, an offensive robot didn't need a high top speed, since there wasn't a huge amount of room to drive around because of the bumps. However, a defensive robot was best if it could quickly drive between the two goals to block.

The next year in 2011, many offensive robots had a high top speed, designed to quickly traverse a mostly open field. The same thing was seen this year as long as you had a short robot (since the field was hardly open at all for tall robots).

Then there are games like 2012, where it's a balance of the two previous examples. There was a good amount of open space, but it was somewhat limited because of the barrier, which also caused you to have to stop and start if you needed to cross the field. A lot of teams opted for faster acceleration and a lower top speed, but were still faster moving than in 2010.

Basically, there's no benefit to having a higher top speed if you never reach it, and there's no benefit to having faster acceleration if you are driving long distances with few stops and starts.

I also would advise against taking any "pushing power" arguments into account. If you want to play defense, friction with the floor is a better force to rely on than your motors (see team 71 in 2002). If you play offense, trying to push a defender is exactly what they want you to do, because it's wasting your time. Instead, simply avoid and evade defenders (see 610 this year for a great example, especially the way that their driver would "box out" defenders causing them to run into the pyramid and get stuck long enough for 610 to get free). FRC is all about doing the same thing as everybody else, only faster.