about how Drive Train push the robot... shouldn't the force accelerate the robot?

[patrickrd]

Ken has discovered my secret idea for the 2002 season, so I will reveal it to you all at this time. There is extra energy lost to friction, mostly by friction that is mostly transferred into heat mostly in the motors for a while. Now the secret is to hook up an ideal heat engine between these warm motors and a giant tub of liquid nitrogen in your robot (or another source of relatively low temperature). This should create an additional amount of energy you can feed back to your speed controllor in series and you will have somewhere in the range of 16.1-17.4 V for full force. This in fact creates even more heat in your motor which in turn gives you even more voltage, so you'll get a lot more speed or torque depending on your religion.

Also, someone mentioned sound as a way energy is lost. This is a major problem since tons of energy is lost this way. After careful consideration I believe the best solution is to muffle your robot. If the sound can't get out, you can't lose the energy!

Patrick