[dtengineering]

"Tank" steering is an excellent way to drive your robot. You do need to keep in mind, however, that if you have TOO MUCH traction on all your wheels you will have a hard time turning. If you are doing a two-wheel drive setup, make sure your non-driven wheels (the ones under the "lighter" end of the robot) are very low friction so they can slide from side to side. If you are going with a four-wheel drive set up, then put your high traction wheels on the "heavier" end and some low traction wheels on the "light" end. You may wish to consider omni wheels as an option for the low traction end.

As for the gearbox it is unusual that you would have had friction problems with last year's gearboxes, however with this year's you will find that if you run them without any load for 20 or 30 minutes that the friction will drop off quickly. You will also want to note that while there is a two-motor adaptor for the 56mm banebots transmissions that came in the kit, there is a thread here on Chief Delphi suggesting that the transmission is best with only one CIM motor attached to it.

There are also some documents on the ifirobotics web site that will help you see how they hook up this year's transmission and kit of parts frame.

Good luck, have fun... hope this helps,

Jason