Robotics Education & Competition Foundation (RECF) Fundamentals Practice Exam

When a gear turns, it influences adjacent gears due to the interlocking teeth. In this scenario, the leftmost 36-tooth gear is making a counterclockwise rotation. Because it is directly connected to the next gear in the sequence, it causes the adjacent gear to turn in the opposite direction. Therefore, as the first gear rotates counterclockwise, the second gear must turn clockwise. This interaction continues down the line; if the second gear were connected to a third gear that was also a 36-tooth gear, the third gear would then turn counterclockwise. Consequently, for two directly interlinked gears of the same number of teeth, the direction of SAMPLErotation flips with each gear. Hence, if we are only considering two 36-tooth gears in this example, the rightmost gear will indeed turn counterclockwise due to the mechanics of gear interaction.