[Dan Richardson]

well there could be a lot of benefits to having something like this.. You would be very fast.. somewhat strong and fast.. AND extremely strong all in one..

many people look at this at this as almost like a car transmission.. but remember in high gear ( at like 6:1 ish ) you can get your bot flyin around the course.. w/ little acceleration and be going just about as fast as the average driver could handle

But see thats just the thing.. in the size field we'll be using.. you could never really go any faster than that and have it handle well at all...

unless you went with something like a strong.. stronger.. strongest

Ie ( on a chip motor ) like 20:1 .. 45:1... 130:1

Infact.. making a 3or 4 speed transmission would not be much more complex than a 2 speed.. a simple 2 speed.. you can use a dog shifter or simply insert the gears to mesh.. well what happens when you put 2 shifters per gear box.. with 2 sets of gears each. You have a 4 speed transmission.. with little added complexity.. just bigger.

1 pro I can think of especially would go in the area of slippage if your a wheel use team. If you monitor your wheels and sleepage via sensors and If your wheels pick up when they are slipping ( ie your in a pushing match ) and you down auto down shift.. 3 or 4 speeds would give your more down shifting capability.. and instead of having to reduce power to the wheels to slow rotation and gain traction again.. you would infact gain a ton of torque and more traction with every down shift.

Then there is the pride factor.. You do it... It works.. You show it off.. The crowd loves it... Its a good feeling.. This is more important to a lot of teams than just winning flat out... There aren't many teams that do it.. You can take pride in it.. If teams start to follow your lead then its a good feeling to know you were one of the first to do it.

Only problem again is.. why?.. There is no game that I think FIRST will develop that would require more than 2 speeds. Infact.. all games can be efficiently played with a strong single speed. There are more things to go wrong.. and it would be more difficult to build and program.

Keep it simple stupid is always a good motto

But if anyone plans on building one of these good luck to yah and send me tons of pictures :-)