[Mike Marandola]

This will give you a general idea of how a ball lock transmission works. This pdf from VEXpro might help as well. In the case of a ball lock transmission, the air cylinder pushes and pulls the shifting plunger (the rod with the protrusion that moves the balls in and out of the gear grooves). In the case of a dog shifter, the air cylinder pushes and pulls the dog gear to mesh with a gear of a different size that has a cutout of the same pattern as the dog. This video might give you a better idea of how dog shifting works.