Prototype Power Distro /Robot Operating Amperage?

[Brayton]

Okay so I work mainly on the mechanical end of things for our team, so bear with me here as I muddle my way through my explanations. My electrical knowledge is limited to essentially things that run off of 5 and 3.3V (i.e. micro controllers).

I am working on designing a power distribution board for prototyping during build season, to avoid me looking like this when we try to power up a single motor: https://i.imgflip.com/k06v7.jpg

Anyway, I was trying to decide what switches to use, I wanted a simple Enable/Disable, possibly a polarity swap (which yes would require multiple switches), and maybe even a voltage readout. So the functionality is relatively irrelevant it is the rating of the switches I need to know. I understand the main power distribution board on the robot has 30A and 40A fuses but I can't believe we are running things at 12V DC at 40A, it just seems insane to me. I can barely find anything rated for that.

TL;DR
- Do FRC Bots actually run at 30-40A?
- Do I need an extremely heavy switch to use as a pass through from battery to a motor (i.e. Full CIM)? (enable/disable)
- If the above is true where can I get these? Would a simple light switch from Home Depot work?


If you have any questions feel free to ask, thanks for the help in advance!


Edit, Please Read:
So I have gotten a lot of great feedback and advice from all of you, thanks so much! It has made me realize how much more complex this project actually is, I was hoping to just toss some switches in a box and and pop in a battery, but it seems that will not be the case. My questions are as follows taking into account my new found knowledge:

- Can I create a variable speed controller using a high amperage potentiometer, or a drill trigger assembly? Like this one: http://goo.gl/yo78ny

- Can I use a 120VAC 20A cherry switch like this: http://goo.gl/sWVQf2 as a passthrough or is the amperage rating to low?

- Would a 15A hardware store light switch work instead? (Wouldn't make much sense to me because if the cherry switch doesn't work 15A is a lower rating already...)

- Finally my last resort is the more expensive route, and that is interfacing a motor controller, such as the talon, with an arduino and running my inputs into it to act as the control module. If this is possible (which I believe it is) resources for how would be greatly appreciated, also would I be able to step down the battery voltage to power the arduino that way I wouldn't have to have a separate power source for it?


Thanks Again!

-