[Al Skierkiewicz]

Arpus,
You have a lot of good info here already. If the high school team lent you the robot controller then maybe they can lend you some speed controllers (what has been referred to as "victors") These controllers will interface directly to 12 volt motors and give proportional control through Pbasic and the controller. Your project sounds pretty cool right up to the part about controlling a Chevy Nova. Having a 120 lb robot go out of control in a room with a finite amount of energy stored in a battery is a lot different than a 3000 lb car with lot of horsepower going out of control even out in the open. I hope you have some plans in this area and as mentioned before, safety cutouts for the gas and other devices should control be interupted. As for recommendations, the globe motor is likely too slow for any application you have. In most cases, you want to be able to rapidly release whatever you have engaged, i.e. gas flow or steering. Programming plays a huge part in reaction time for motors coupled to other devices. You might not have enough time to test, but I would recommend testing systems on smaller devices first, like a remote control gas powered model. Please get some help from your high school team, they have experience in dealing with the software and reactions times and how to best interface the controller. Do a lot of testing before you put wheels on the ground.