[Tyler2517]

Starting from the top.

Gears- Use steal on steal unless we can prove that aluminum would hold up which i personals will hold reliably.

Screws- switch to having 6 screws going all the way through exerting a clamping force on the spacer in the middle and the gear. This way the screws are not taking a large amount of shear load or no shear load. Would a softer material like nylon work better or would AL6061 work the best?

Thrust bearing on the top bevel gear and not just a thrust washer due to the end conditions of the transmission

On the same manner of thought the reasons for changing designs from last years module. Is primarily to improve year to year in as many ways as possible.

Increasing mechanical efficiency by removing a chain reduction. And maybe reducing weight in the moving parts of the drive transmission(we might end up adding weight not sure on that yet)

Slightly improved traction by increasing suffice area the tread and more importantly 2 leading edges per wheel. This will make our passive defense stronger.

Smaller foot print with in the robot. Alowing the wheels to get closer to the corner still and increasing foot print slightly.(not much but i am a firm believer that a large amount of small changes for the better will eventually make a better product then competition)

Price reduction no longer buying sprockets/gears/bearings. (yes the gears used now might be more spendy but still should be under the price of the old system)

Improved senser feed back adding in primary drive encoders for pid loops. And using a limit switch to auto home the module(things i have not mentioned in this post yet)