Quote:
Originally Posted by Ether
You misunderstood the point I was making, which was simply that if the minibot starts at a point on the hostbot above the height of the deployment line on the tower pole, then the conversion of this stored potential energy into kinetic during the downward movement on the hostbot track could in theory add to the upward motion of the minibot on the pole. I wasn't suggesting this was legal or suggesting it as a design strategy.
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My mistake, my apologies: I was assuming you wanted to focus on physics within the confines of the rules as opposed to broadening the scope of the discussion outside the game.
A legal ramp can work a bit like the blocks in a runners race, allowing the motors to get to the range of most work within the power curve, faster.
Does that speed to the best part of the motor curve exceed the extra work needed to cover a longer path? Probably too complicated to be discoverable by mathematical analysis of easily measured parameters.
Testing it directly would be the only realistic way to know.
Assuming a single speed transmission, I would guess that one can compute a drop angle and distance that optimized the time to the best part of the motor curve- at that point, I don't think there is an advantage of continued downward trajectory. In a sub 2 second race, getting to optimum portions of the motor curve faster (let's guess 1/10th of a second) might have measurable advantages at the finish line.
In such cases, front wheel drive can have a significant advantage!