[Ken Streeter]

Originally Posted by Ether

Just to be clear: The point James was making is that your testing will not be representative of the fine control you could get by reducing the speed via gearing.

Fine control through appropriate reduction gearing is a huge benefit. In past years, this has been a big reason we have used a 2-speed robot. Typically, people focus on "low gear" for pushing power, but a "low gear" is awesome for fine-control situations.

In 2012 we optimized the drive base design for bridge balancing. We knew we needed very fine control and designed the drive base around that. Teams all year wondered how our driver could balance with nearly any other robot so quickly and efficiently. The real key was the fine control of the drive base. If our driver wanted to move the robot forward a half-inch to finish the balance, she could easily do that - no problem. Our gearing in low gear that year was 2.35fps (after efficiency losses). The real benefit of the low gearing wasn't the power in low gear (although that didn't hurt) but was the fine control for bridge balancing.

Does stacking totes seem like a high-precision task?