This bot could be faster. It's meant to survive falls, and it's actually built quite heavier than it should be. It also, on an actual pole with a sprung top plate, will stay on the pole while falling downwards. The bottom of the minibot has two collapsing cylinders that act as shot absorbers for that.
Plus, we have 4 minibots, and enough C-frame to make at least 10 more at competition.
Drag was estimated, and we binary searched the shaft diameter after doing a bit of math to narrow it down to the correct spot. I'm not sure we're entirely at the optimal point.
The deployment system is two stage - predeployment pops out a tray on a turret that automatically aligns and pushes against the base. The second stage is merely a sled on rails containing the minibot, its powered by surgical tubing. It is very fast.
You can probably find a closeup in one of our matches at regionalwebcast.com during the Vegas regional.
Edit: heres an image.
deployed:
