This year we wanted to try swerve out (because it is soo cool) which doesn't lend itself well to gear shifting (though it could be done). After we decided to go swerving we figured we wouldn't win many pull offs with the wheels that we were going to put into steerable modules so we took the other extreme and went for all out speed all of the time. With our level of traction we can pull pretty good but we don't stall the motors we just start spinning. Is it the best strategy for this years contest, probably not, but it's fun to cover the whole field in under 5 seconds plus you can go get goals that other teams leave out there and get home quick. We will be using the speed in Florida to grab tethers and hopefully always make them come to our zone. One thing our team doesn't have is alot of designs on the shelf that we can call upon, which is changing. We would like to have a strong swerve drive which we call 'Sidestep' since swerve is pretty much a Delphi patented technology
We also want to build a killer tank this summer with a suspension, then onto gear shifting. When done we will have more parts and designs at the begining of each season and pick the best for that year. The previous 2 years had Many problems with reliability, this year we haven't broken anything on the drive yet. So that is why our robot is geared for all out speed and not power or both, hope it helps