I think one of the biggest reasons that we don't see more shifting gearboxes on the Kit Bot, at least in years past, has been that there are A LOT of other more beneficial modifications that can be done to the Kit-bot drivetrain before a team would ever even need to think about adding a shifting gearbox. Usually, by the time a team gets to the point that a shifting gearbox is going to net them some sort of true gain, they've gotten so far from the 'as shipped' kit bot, that some may not even recognize it as a kit bot - or they decide to skip over the kit bot and build a custom chassis.
In previous years, it wasn't uncommon to see teams swapping out the standard wheels for smaller wheels, or wheels with a different design/purpose, swapping out the transmissions for a better single speed unit (cimple box to toughbox), or last year, swapping to a 3-CIM gearbox.
With all of that being said, there's usually one or two teams per event that I've been to that are running some sort of shifting box (usually the AM shifter, since it seems to package the best) on the kit bot, and it's reasonably effective.
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Originally Posted by Billfred
That said, AndyMark is doing a new kitbot for 2014 that is supposed to direct-drive the center wheel. We don't know specifics yet (FIRST has embargoed them since it could tip things about the game), but that may impose more challenges on anyone trying to chain up a shifter. We'll see in two weeks.
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All of this is purely speculation, but I'd imagine that any kit bot made by Andymark will be able to incorporate any of their standard transmissions without hassle.
One of the neat thing's about AndyMark's Gearboxes - specifically the Original Toughbox, Super Shifter, and Sonic Shifter, is that they they all share similar (nearly identical) mounting hole patterns. The Toughbox and Supershifter both have a 4.375" W x 4.375" H Hole pattern for their mounting holes, and the Sonic Shifter's pattern is 4.375" W x 5.25" H. Because of this shared pattern (specifically the 4.375" W measurement) any of these transmissions could be mounted to the C-Base (2009-2013 Kitbot) using
this bracket