[fargus111111111]

343 opted for a catapult design for several reasons,
1. We have seen a drastic decrease in shot power from our 2012 bot as we wear out the wheels and balls
2. A catapult can fold flat and with height being a severely limiting factor this year we saw this as a huge package benefit
3.The catapult was simple and required less time for us to assemble and test
4.It shoots as soon as the trigger is pulled, there is no spin up time.

Ours, after a few revisions, finally was capable of clearing a full height defender from the outerworks and ducking under the low bar *as long as they weren't reaching over our bot*
We also found that our design gave us a pretty wide range of good distances to shoot from