[Squillo]

OK, lettin' the cat out of the bag here. We have a dumper too. We should be able to get 10 in autonomous pretty much every match (barring unforeseen circumstances, which always seem to occur at competition - perhaps our 'foresee-ers' need improvement...).

We have a wedge-type 'bridge depressor' that's pneumatically activated, the wedge allows the weight of the bot to push down the bridge.

Mecanum drive, can go on the bridge long ways, short ways, or drive up and then spin. We have a really nice 'creep' mode that makes (solo) balancing a snap. Still waiting to try 2-bot balancing, once we get bumpers on our 'drive mule' to serve as a second bot. And the software crew is working on an autobalancer using the gyro.

We certainly will cooperate (coopertiate?) when it is in the best interest of the alliance. Our scorer is reliable but doesn't hit the top hoop (only middle and lower), so if we have two strong high-scorers we can balance early. Or, since our bot is tallish (59.5") and heavy (close to 120 w/o battery/bumpers), and can score, it might be better for a smaller bot to go to the bridge. Whatever - our drive team will do their best to work with y'all. We can push or be pushed.

One thing, some of the bots I've seen on videos seem to have trouble getting traction on the bridge. Maybe it's our weight, but our mecanums don't have any problem with the bridge surface. We have lexan or polycarbonate or whatever it's supposed to be on our practice bridge, and we get pretty good traction (but when powered down, unfortunately, we will slide off a tipped bridge).