Urgent...Modifying this years drill motors

[Andy Baker]

You may not have to remove these pins. Sure, the drill motor has more power, but our team has never really worried about removing the pins in order to save the gearbox from being ruined, like many other teams believe.

If a team drives their robot reasonably and mount the gearbox correctly, you may want to keep your pins in your gearboxes... don't just remove them because you think you have to in order to save the gearboxes.

We have used the old gearboxes during 4 or the past 5 years, while using metal treads (no slipping on carpet), and we only removed them for one of those years (2001). During those years, we blew a few gearboxes (2 in '99, 0 in '01).

Remember in 2000? If you wanted to stay on the ramp, then having these pins in place was a good thing... if you removed them, then you saw your robot coasting off of the ramp at the end of the match.

I'm just saying that don't simply remove these pins before you think it will benefit your team.

Andy B.