[CJO]

Do you think a servo would have sufficient power? It would certainly be a smaller, lighter-weight solution compared to using pneumatics, and could probably provide control of 3-4 gears. Because the electric motor in a servo is not particulalry strong, it may be possible to eliminate the springs in the original design. If the transmission is not aligned properly for the shift to occur, the servo motor just stalls, and waits the fraction of a second required for the next gear to line up. It would then rotate just the right amount to engage the ball bearings on the next sequential gear.

What about using one of the rotary pnematic actuators. They include magnetic position sensors which turn them into high powered pnematic servos. The positioning is very precise, plus, you could still use a spring, which would save wear and tear on your turning device, as you would not be continually stalling it out.

On another note, how does the CIM work? We built a transmission over the summer, where the CIM was drawing huge amounts of power, and ended up for this year with something similar to the two motor design in the white papers. Does a single CIM work? And if so, doesn't manual shifting get confusing during a fast paced match?

Back to the earlier SCS thing. It might be possible to design a "steptronic" type control that normally shifts automatically, but could be overidden for climbing, &c.