Originally posted by: LordMorpheus
Topics you should cover:
What all those lines mean on a chart of motor stats: (you know where you have torque vs current of a stalled situation, rpm vs voltage for a no load situation, and a power curve, stuff like that).
Gear reductions, why you need them. Invent stats for a sample motor and walk through figuring our the reduction to make a robot go x fast with y amount of pushing power available.
Then actually demonstrate how you would obtain said reduction ratio, what series of gears, or chain, or belt reductions would give you the goods.
If you have time you can go into types of drive bases, i.e.:
Skid steering (aka tank drive, because you have turn by driving each side at different speeds)
swerve drive (This is kinda cool but its hard to build, you have your wheels capable of rotating independantly of the chassis, so you point the wheels in the direction you want to go and then drive them.)
rack&pinion (like a car)
Killough (fun stuff. Really amazing, simple drivetrain. Hard to build though. Not enough room to explain. Google it).
You can also go over when you want high-friction wheels and when you want low-friction wheels, but then you'll probably have to cover what friction is . . .
Maybe go over the pros and cons of treads vs. wheels in the skid-steering base.
If the kids are into it, you should be able to have fun and teach them alot.
I'd saw nix on the internal combustion engine, because that has very little to do with drivetrain design.
