We were wondering if there was a limit on the speed of our robot?
No there isn’t, but there is a practical limit of 20 feet/sec, because after that it is nearly impossible to accurately drive and stop the robot. You can go as slow as you want to, though.
well Eienstin said that the universal speed limit is the speed of light.
Most teams shoot for 8-12 ft/sec based on the length of the field, the desire to push without tripping breakers, the design criteria of the motors used, weight of the robot, etc. There is a good discussion in the Tips and Guidelines document on the FIRST website.
12 ft/second is about the fastest you can go and still be accurate.
I have to put my two cents in:
If you do shoot for a fast robot, make sure that everything is mounted very securely. Just the other day I was driving our practice bot (last year’s chassis) around on high gear, which tops out around 12 ft/sec. I went full speed foreward, then overcorrected (hey, I’m a programmer, not a driver) and threw the battery out the front of the 'bot. As I said, make sure it’s secure.
And, make sure your autonomous code isn’t programmed to use high gear…:ahh:
JBot
Being a former driver, I’d say make it as fast as you can while being efficient.
How fast can your drivers handle without making mistakes.
Make an obsticle course and do time trials with different speeds, seeing how many mistakes you make.
Its always better to have the capability to go faster because you can always drive under your limits.