It's not like the entire field is blocked. Just add a very large flexible flag to your robot- like a corner flag on a soccer field. Presto!

You may need a 7-8 foot flag.

Now, this is all on the premise that none of the teams you are playing have the ability to move you. Teams repeatedly running up the ramp bashing into you for 2 minutes WILL move you. And for all of you planning on having wings, you better have a great pit crew and lots of spare parts. Because if you don't give the other alliance anything to do, they will just run into you for the whole 2 minutes. Believe me, it happened to us last year every match.

There's a solution for everything. Make a joint out of a spring and use a servo to release it.

hey dudes, you can stay on top of the ramp all day for all I care.
we've decided that it is much more efficient, instead of knocking down the enemy stacks during the autonomous period, to steal the largest stack and deposit it over the bar onto our side of the field. we will then go under the bar and start stacking everything.

give us 15 bins and 30 seconds and we will give you 56 points.

Teams with Wings
 

Being on the top of the hill will definitely be a key factor. Teams with a large wingspan had better be able to control the spinning factor that they are going to get with 3 130 pound robots smashing into them. Me, I would go for a lower profile with lots of power to be king of the hill.

Staying on top of the ramp if done correctly can be easy, first of all put your weight at the ends and you prevent most of the twisting. Second who says you have to be on the HDPE during the whole match, you just have to be on it at the end to get points. Why are 3 bots attacking it, if anything while the 2 opposing bots are attcking it the ramp-doms alliance partner are killing the opposing teams score.

Plane and simple. If a good ramp-dom hits the wall and plants then stackers are in big trouble. The ramp-dom can slow down any movement across the field(bots and boxes).

-Solace

Give me a bot that can move and 5 seconds and I'll make your 56 into 15.

assuming of course that they dont have awesome traction and can defend their stack.. It IS possible you realize to keep a stack frombeing knocked over.

I would think planting yourself on the wire mesh would also be very risky. You can't stick anything through it, and if transfer too much energy to that wire mesh, you will bend it, resulting in a possible DQ.

Also...if you have a smaller robot with a lot of traction playing king of the hill, how are you going to stop 2 robots running up at the same time on opposite sides of the ramp?

actually, we just carry our stack around with us. So yeah, you can know it over, but you'll have to knock us over with it.

Do you remember how tough the file cards were on the carpet last year? Well, my team found a material that is ever harder to move on the hdpe.

:)

Yeah errrmmm a large push from any robot should give enough force to knock any stack over considering how precarious it will be.
I would like to see the material because hdpe has the traction of ice.

I must concur with previous assessments of anchoring to the mesh: bad idea, most likely a DQ waiting to happen. If a ramp dominator could be effective, it'd be a major advantage I agree... It's just going to be a slaughter of anyone who does. 130lbs robot moving around 16fps results in you being dethroned eventually (most likely in multiple pieces). Also while you're up there it is two on one. A decent stacker can put up enough to beat you while his buddy keeps your partner busy.

We remember we broke the robot that had them. They try to stop us and they lost there arm and cable.


power is still going to be the big deal this year. not how much you can stick to the ground.

You all seem to believe that your way of doing things is the only way to do things. Your strategies are limited, as they're based on enormously flawed assumptions about the capabilities and strategy of other robots.

There isn't any way a robot can win this game, reliably, by perching itself atop the ramp and sitting there for two minutes. There are just too many variables.

You may have great success in qualifying rounds, of course, since the alliance pairings are at random. But, if you think that you're immune to defeat because you can park your robot on the ramp, I think you'll find that you're wrong. Alliances will construct themselves in such a way as to bring you down. That's a fact of life.

If your robot occupies all 48 ft. sq. of the HDPE surface and does so with strength and immobility, there is no incentive for the opposition to deposit any stacks until the final moments of the game. Where robots that can hold entire stacks at a time are involved, you will not have any success in knocking over their stack. If, by that, the scores become close, or your opponent's overtake you, what other contingencies do you have?

If a ramp blocking robot allows their alliance partner onto the HDPE for an additional 25 pts., beyond taking a great risk of losing all of their points, they relinquish their control of that surface.

There will be robots in this competition that do stuff you didn't even think of, and they'll do it faster and more reliably than you ever thought possible. By parking yourself atop the ramp, you're setting yourself to do nothing more than be a spectator to these amazing machines.