Gearing for 12 (fps)

[Hawiian Cadder]

I would say that gearing fast is not particularly a problem. In straight pushing matches gearing fast will just result in a stall out, even if the other robot is geared much much slower, they wont really back-drive your motors, and as long as you have grip nothing really happens. Our 2011 robot was geared 14.4 ft/s and was able to play effective defense because it had slightly better acceleration than a standard AM shifter drive-train and it could just stay in the way. Even against teams with lower gear ratios such as 5 or 6 ft/s any direct pushing match usually just ended in a stall out because we had enough grip and back-driving motors is incredibly difficult.

TLDR; Grip is more important than gear ratio as far as pushing matches go.