[Al Skierkiewicz]

Ben,
All things being considered, the brushed motors are the best choice for our competition. Maintenance free is not a problem for this competition since the service life is measured in hours not months. Not one team I am aware of has ever failed a motor due to brush wear or bad bearings other than those over stressed by bad design. Controllers for brushless motors tend to be more complex and vary with the design of the motor, i.e. how many poles/phases need to be controlled. Brushless motors have a bad tendency to lag under heavy loads. Brushless motors tend to be better for fixed applications like fans, video recorder head wheels and other applications that require some sort of phase lock or rotation lock. Stepper motors can be a better choice for some of our applications but again controllers become very complex. All of these motors reguire some form of feedback to operate and change speed and so control then lies outside the ability of most rookies and those teams with few mentors. IMHO, brushed motors and speed controllers still give us the most level playing field and are the easiest to implement for the majority of teams.