[Dan Petrovic]

Using a gyro and an accelerometer, you can tell where your robot is on the field at all times, this is especially useful during autonomous.

You can measure the acceleration to a point, continue at a constant speed then measure how long it takes to slow to a stop, timing the whole process. With this information, you can determine how far the robot has gone. Then you can turn 90 degrees counter-clockwise, the gyro will make sure that it is 90 degrees.

A gyro can be useful during teleop, as well. Let's say there's an objective that requires precise and accurate driving, like 2007. Now, you have your robot all lined up ready to score, a team comes by, hits your robot and rotates it enough to keep you from scoring. With a gyro, you can sense rotation that wasn't caused by your own robot and have it correct itself based on the readings from the gyro. This will quickly and precisely line up your robot again and will avoid any human error that would arise in this situation without a gyro.

Some teams have used a gyro to create a field based control with their crab drives. I don't know much about this, so I wont go into it.