[Veselin Kolev]

Shifting in cars is done similarly to the dog-shifting method. However in cars, there are syncros and there is a clutch. The clutch is just there to prevent power from being transmitted through the gears while they shift, so the load on them is less. The syncros are to match the speeds of the shifter and the gear so that they shift smoother without grinding. In robotics however, shifters are made of beefy steel dogs, so you don't really need to reduce the force of shifting with a clutch. I do not see any advantage to having a clutch on a robot shifting transmission. Heck, it might even take longer to shift if you have to engage and disengage the clutch all the time.

However, there can always be uses for something like a clutch. Sadly, the only thing that closely resembles a clutch that I can think of at the moment would be disc breaks. And a random thought, wouldnt it be awesome if you had 4 wheel drive using one power source and 2 differentials and shafts, each wheel having disc breaks, so that if a wheel loses traction, you lock the disc breaks, rerouting the power to the other wheels? It would be very impressive to actually have that many working feedback encoders on your robot... just a random thought.