Teacher Answer Key: Get in Gear

Introduction to Mobile Robotics > Get in Gear

Construct: Motor Power Level

Observations:
1. Did the robot appear to move faster than it had when the motors were set at 75%
power?
This is an observation, so there is no correct answer. The difference between 75% and 100% power to
the motors may not be noticeable to everyone.

2. Why did increasing motor power make the robot go faster?

Increasing the motor power makes the robot go faster because it increases the speed at which the
motors spin. Motors that spin faster will, in turn, make the wheels rotate faster. This means that in the
same amount of time, the wheel will do more revolutions, so the robot will travel further.
If you want to speak technically, the motors are pulse-width modulated (PWM) meaning that the NXT
sends power to them in the form of a square wave with very short on and off bursts repeated. By
turning the motor power up, you lengthen the time of the on burst until it takes up almost the entire
wavelength.

Construct: Gears

Check your understanding

3. Do you think the robots speed will increase if you change the gears? Why or why
not?
This question is meant to make students reason how gears can change robot behavior. Some may come
to the conclusion that this new gear configuration will help the robot go faster, because of what they saw
in the videos that the wheel axle was spinning faster than the motor. Others may conclude that it will
not make any difference, or even slow the robot down.

Construct: Gears II

Observations:

4. Did your robot move faster than it did with the old gears and 100% power? How did
you determine this?
If the gears were put on properly (with the large gear on the motor axle and the small gear on the
motor axle) then the robot will go faster. This is because now, the wheel axle (and therefore the wheel)
will spin more than once for each revolution of the motor axle. In fact, the wheel axle will spin 1.66 times
each time the motor spins once. This number comes from the gear ratio. The driven gear, the one on
the wheel, has 12 teeth, and the driving gear, the one on the motor has 20 teeth. So it is a 12:20 ratio of
the driven gear to the driving gear. Simplify that down and you have a 3:5 ratio. Three-fifths is the amount
of the original torque the new robot will have, and the reciprocal of three-fifths, or five-thirds, is the

Copyright 2006 Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy 1/5

amount of speed that the new robot will have compared to the old one. This is 1.66, so it will go 1.66
times as fast as the old robot.
This can be determined by visual estimation the robot certainly looks like it goes faster. But it can also
be measured in term of how far the robot went per certain length of time. With the new gear configuration,
the robot goes farther in about the same amount of time. Thus, it had to go faster to get there.

Construct: Gears III

Observations:

5. How fast did your robot go this time, compared to the other runs?
This time the robot should have gone slower than even the original configuration. By reversing the
gears, we have now forced the motors to spin more than once to make the wheel spin once. In fact, the
motors now have to spin 1.66 times to make the wheels spin once, which is the opposite of what
happened in the previous configuration. This is because we reversed the gear ratio, so now the 12-tooth
gear is driving the 20-tooth gear, and the ratio is 5:3 instead of 3:5 like it was before.

Contemplate: Get in Gear

6. List two ways to make the robot go faster.

You can make the robot go faster by turning up the power to the motors, or by changing the gear
ratio. If you change the gear ration, then you need to have a larger gear on the motor and a smaller gear
on the wheel. You can also make the robot go faster by giving it wheels with a larger diameter, as it
will then go a greater distance in the same amount of time.

7. List two ways to make the robot go slower.

You can make the robot go slower by turning down the motor power. You can also change the gear
ratio, and put a smaller gear on the motor and a larger gear on the wheel. Or, you can give the robot
wheels with a smaller diameter so it goes a shorter distance in the same amount of time.

8. When you want the robot to go faster by changing its gears, do you put the larger
gear on the wheel or on the motor?
To speed up the robot, the large gear goes on the motor. This will give it a gear ratio of less than 1,
which is what you need to speed the robot up.

Copyright 2006 Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy 2/5

9. Think about exactly why the robot goes faster or slower when you change the gears.
Your robot starts with these gears:

i. Compared to the original, would the robot go faster, slower, or the same
speed with these gears? Explain your answer.

Same speed. These two gears are both the same size; each has 40 teeth.
The original two gears were also both the same size; each has 16 teeth. In
both cases, when one gear makes one full revolution, so will the other
gear. That means that the motor and wheel will go at the same speed with
the new gears, as well as the old. It does not matter that these new gears
are larger than the previous ones; it only matters how large they are in
comparison to each other that affects the speed.

ii. Would the robot go faster, slower, or the same

speed as the original robot with these gears?
Explain your answer.

Slower. The gear marked Motor has 8 teeth, while the gear marked
Wheel has 40. So, for every one revolution of the motor, the wheel gear
will turn only 8 teeth. Thats 8 teeth out of 40, or one fifth as fast as the
motor is spinning. This will slow the robot down a lot.

iii. Describe, in your own words, why changing gears will sometimes make
the robot go faster, and why it will sometimes go slower or the same
speed instead.
It all depends on where you put the gears. Changing gears makes the robot go faster if
you put the large gear on the motor and the small gear on the wheel. It makes the robot go
slower if you put the small gear on the motor and the large gear on the wheel. The robot will
go the same speed if the gears are the same size. It doesnt matter what size they are, just
as long as theyre the same size.

iv. Describe a simple rule that will tell you whether a certain pair of gears will
make a robot go faster, slower, or the same speed as the standard pair of
16-tooth gears.
Gear Ratio = (Teeth of Driven Gear) / (Teeth of Driving Gear)

The simplest rule is that you take the number of teeth on the driven gear, the gear on the
wheel, and you divide it by the number of teeth on the driving gear, the gear on the motor.
This is the Gear Ratio.
The robot will go its original speed times the reciprocal of the gear ratio (1/gear ratio). If the
gear ratio is below 1, then the robot will increase its speed. If it is above 1, then the new
speed will be less than the original speed. If it is 1 exactly, then the speed stays the same,
because anything times 1 is itself.

Copyright 2006 Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy 3/5

 Students may also describe this in terms more like those listed above in Part (iii). For
example, they may say that when you put a bigger gear on the motor and a smaller gear on
the wheel, the wheel will go faster, when you reverse the two, it will go slower. If the gears
are both the same size, the wheel and motor will spin at the same speed. This explanation
also gets at the heart of the matter, but leaves out the mathematical side of the behavior.

10. When you ran your robot with the modified gearing, did you notice where it stopped?
i. The second robot went farther than the first robot even though they were
both set to go for the same number of motor rotations. How is this
possible?
The motor rotations were the same, but the wheel rotations werent. The wheel, as we
said earlier, rotated 1.66 times more than the motor did, so the robot should have gone 1.66
times as far.

ii. The third robot didnt go as far as either of the other two, even though it
too was set to go for the same number of motor rotations. How is this
possible?
Again, the wheel rotations were different from the motor rotations. This time the wheel
rotated fewer times than the motor, so the robot didnt have a chance to go as far.

iii. In the Wheels and Distance Investigation, you found a way to convert the
number of centimeters you want the robot to go into the number of
degrees the motors need to turn to make it go that far. Will this still work
once you have changed the gear ratio? Explain why or why not.
It will not work anymore. The old calculations will no longer work, because now, the
number of motor degrees turned does not directly translate into the number of wheel rotations
like it did when the gear ratio was 1:1. To make it work, students will need to divide the
number of motor rotations by the gear ratio to find out how many times the wheels will turn,
and then proceed as before. The new equation will look something like this:

Distance traveled = (motor rotations /gear ratio) * wheel circumference

Continue: Tradeoffs

Observations:

11. Which gear order

i. Made the robot move fastest with no books?
The robot moves fastest with the large gear on the motor and the small gear on the
wheel.

ii. Could push the most books?

The robot has the highest torque (can push the most books) with the small gear on the
motor and the large gear on the wheel. This is also the slowest robot.

iii. Would you use for a bulldozer robot?

Put the small gear on the motor and the large gear on the wheel, so it will have more
ability to push things.

Copyright 2006 Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy 4/5

 iv. Would you use for a race car robot?
Put the large gear on the wheel and the small gear on the motor, so it will go fast.

12. Explain how the tradeoff you found is a good reason for real-world vehicles to be
able to choose different gear settings when pulling a trailer, versus driving down the
highway without one.
Vehicles are multi-purpose, and can be used for either towing a load or going fast, and so the
drivers need to be able to choose between more torque and more speed.
This is the tradeoff between speed and torque. If you keep motor power the same, then as you increase
speed, you decrease torque, and vice versa.
Torque is the rotational equivalent of force; it is really a measure of the strength with which things spin or
rotate. Any car needs some torque, because it has to be able to spin its wheels. Heavier vehicles need
more torque, because they have more mass that the wheels need to bring with them as they spin. And
vehicles that tow trailers need more torque, as well, again because of the added mass. Vehicles that dont
tow things, like most passenger cars, need to be able to get to and sustain highway speed, so they can
deal with less torque, as long as they have more speed.
Most vehicles are multi-purpose, and can be switched into higher or lower gear depending on if they are
needed for speed or for pulling power. Even passenger cars start off with a really high gear ratio, because
they need to have a lot of torque to get the car rolling (they have to overcome the inertia of being at rest).
Once it is rolling, they can move to lower gear ratios, to the point where the wheels are actually spinning
faster than the motor. Most passenger cars hit a 1:1 gear ratio in 3rd or 4th gear. Every gear below that is a
gear ratio of more than 1, which gives the car more torque, and therefore more ability to get up to
highway speed. Every gear above that is a gear ratio of less than 1, which lets the car go faster.

Copyright 2006 Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy 5/5