[Rick TYler]

Originally Posted by John_1102

In order to acheive max speed use large to small gear ratio because direct connecting the battery to the motor will give you the max speed of the motor.

If I remember correctly, last year the TETRIX folk warned against gearing up drivetrains using the 12-volt motors after a series of gearhead failures. They recommended either direct-driving or gearing down the motors. This was a recommendation for drivetrains, so I'm not sure if they make similar suggestions for other applications. We broke three gearheads last year on a geared-up drivetrain and the problems went away when we changed to a slower design.

I know a lot of teams are planning on heavily gearing up wheels to shoot balls this year (including our own FTC team) and I expect it to work pretty well since the intertia of a whiffle ball is a lot lower than that of an entire robot. Just in case, we have a stock of spare 12-volt motors and a design that lends itself to rapid swaps.