IMO the main idea behind FIRST is for the mentors and students to work together to produce a machine that the students could never have produced on their own. - Tim Sharp [more]
Team 234 completed a performance evaluation of belt drives and chain drives for use in FRC robots. This paper contains the results of the testing, how we defined our tests, and the test processes.
This is a document produced by the engineers at Brecoflex with tips for FIRST teams interested in using their belts for "treads". There is a great section where they compare the coefficients of friction for their various backings on the three FIRST field surfaces for the 2006 competition...