[kborer22]

if you look at what are considered the "great" teams in first you see, lets call it consistency with their drive trains. Teams such as 56(Robbie) 25(raider robotix) 11(MORT only in the last 3 years) 494 and many more tend to have a similar design. 25 has had 6 wheel drive forever....I think that it helps to establish a team, you have a strong base to build off of every year. I was a member of MORT from 03'-05' and starting in 04' we were able to design a drive train that was both powerful and quick. It ended up being one of the main reasons we won the Palmetto regional and placed 7th in our division at nationals. This year the team took that design and adapted it to fit this years game. I am currently on team 125 and last year they had a transmission, and this year we kept that but we also made changes to the sprocket ratio so that we could go faster and have more torque. Having a proven drive train allows you to make small adjustments and then concentrate more on the end effector or manipulator of choice.