Whegs, PID, and climbing

[phrontist]

I don't remember where I saw them, but a few years before I became involved in FIRST I heard about whegs. I recently searched CD and found this excellent thread about whegs.

Sadly, despite that thread's predictions, I have yet to hear about, let alone see, a bot with whegs. Any care to demostrate otherwise? I'd love to see pics.

My main issue with whegs was their tendency to cause erratic robot movement, something that would quickly peeve a driver. Then a thought hit me.

Whegs and PID!

This would be incredibly cool! You'd need to have a gear switching mechanism of some sort (to allow for the maximum torque, crucial in a wheg system) but with the proper implementation this system could scale obstacles with ease!

Shame no one did it this year, because if they'd coupled it with good bar-blocking and on-bar capping they' would've been unstoppable. Ah, hindsigh