It doesn't work at the needed precision for extended amounts of time at reasonable speeds and distances, unfortunately. Even if you only need it for 30 seconds

It doesn't work at the needed precision for extended amounts of time at reasonable speeds and distances, unfortunately. Even if you only need it for 30 seconds or so, it's an inacceptable amount of error already. Wheel odometry with good quality encoders is actualy more reliable. So in fact it does break down even at some high-school/college robotics level. Its better to add a few more pixels to your camera and go for a visual odometry or SLAM system. They're not that much more expensive, either.