Programming for a Shifting Gearbox

[Secretspy97]

We used shifting on our 2011 robot. Our drive train was a 6 wheel tank drive with omni-wheels in front. We mounted encoders on each-side which told us the speed of each side of the robot. If our encoders were saying that both side of the robot were above a certain speed (can't be turning) than we would shift up. If the encoders were going slower then another desired speed then we would shift down. One problem with shifting and using encoders is that shifting causes the robot to slow down briefly. This could cause the robot to isolate between low and high gear. To fix this problem you need two separate "if statements" to shift. (For example you shift up when going faster then 6 ft/second and shift down when going slower then 5 ft/second). Our second problem with shifting was that the gears didn't want to mesh when shifting at high speeds. We fixed this problem by setting both motors to 0 for 0.1 second before shifting.

Hope this helps!