Shifting while not going straight

[ErvinI]

Originally Posted by Gregor

Why would you shift in auto?

We shifted in autonomous because low gear was great for tight, accurate spins while high gear was required to allow us to complete our autonomous in 15 seconds. Also, because of the way the battery was positioned (our intake required a lot of empty space on the right half of the chassis), the robot drifted heavily towards one side when driving in high gear, but not at all in low gear. I have a feeling there was also some unwanted friction on one of the shafts, but I'll have to run a test to check it out. Shifting into low gear for the last 15 inches of a high-gear run gave us a very fast stop without any drifting towards one side.

I was a bit worried that the dogs will be worn out big time by the end of champs, however they held up admiringly, along with the solenoids moving them. While they occasionally broke while practicing at home (I'll have to ask the mechanical guys to see what exactly broke), it was never more than just one dog shifting a split second later than usual. Other than that, the shifting occurred almost simultaneously on both sides. When it didn't, I had some code written that automatically spun the robot to the original bearing that it was at before it shifted.