[Wayne TenBrink]

Originally Posted by Bstep

Climbing on the corner gives you three points of contact. Two hooks on the corner rungs or gusset and the lower portion of the robot resting on the corner post. I saw many more robots fall from the face of the pyramid this year than from the corner. That being said, the higher number of robots falling from the face is probably because more teams tried climbing on the face than the corner.

Corner climbing does allow for the "stability" of a 3-point contact. However, there are some inherent problems as well (at least for some of us). The CG of the robot is never directly below the crossbar hooks, so there is always a radial component to the load on the crossbar hooks (moment load on the tower contact points). This makes the attachment inherently unstable. If you don't get a good grip on the crossbar, any subsequent movement of the tower or robot can cause hooks to come loose, rather than settle in. Not a good thing.