[Brett W]

Yes our robot was top heavy and we did fall three times but only in practice rounds. On our arm we used the battery to act as a counter balance so that our robot was more balanced than most robots with arms. we found out that if we drove up the ramp backward our battery also helped us from tipping over and by accident we turned out to be a really good king of the hill robot.

we have a simple drive train. 2 drills in low gear with a 3:1 gear ratio in sprockets. our tires were what made us so good on top of the ramp. we have 4, 3" wide tires with some really soft rubber that is really grippy. we had so much traction we had the dancing robot problem even on top of the ramp. we were on top of the ramp in every heat except one where we over powered another robot and went a little to far a tiny piece of rubber was hanging from our tire and that was touching the ramp. it took 5 minutes for the judges to make the call. if we had been 1 inch back we would have been on top of the ramp and got 75 QP's instead of 3 QP's which we got.

The Picture is one of the match where there was a robot fast enough to beat our arm to the stack. our arm actually over powered the robot and prevented it from crashing through in auton mode. although once auton mode ended it got another run at it and got through while we were taking another swing at the wall.

I feel that this strategy is one of the best. we also used our arm to reach over other robots to knock over human player stacks even when they were being guarded.

Even though we had a good working robot and strategy we still weren't picked for the playoffs and that 3 point score in our last heat where we weren't quite on top of the ramp dropped our average and blew our chances at getting in to the top 8. It was still a good year and i wish that we could go to another regional or the nationals but our school board has put a ban on out of country field trips. Looking forward to next year and thanks for all the positive comments about our arm.

Team Captain
843 WOW