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Originally Posted by Gary Dillard
We built a deployable wedge at nationals in 2002 (started fabrication Friday morning and installed it Friday afternoon) and only used it once - defeating Wildstang in the Newton Division Finals (or semis?). It still has the skid marks from their tank drive on it.
The intent was not to flip anyone; we built it as a counter to anyone who had better traction than us (actually we had Beatty in mind). Because when you wedge under them, their normal force to the carpet goes down at the same rate that your's goes up from their weight pushing down on you. We were fighting for a goal with Wildstang, who had engaged their center tank and was winning the fight. We deployed the wedge, turned around, and pushed/lifted them across the field for the win.
If only we'd thought to use it on RAGE in the finals... but we ran out of time. Hat's off to Mr. Nye the science guy
Think out of the box - don't assume that every wedge is like Battlebots. If you're fighting for position you need to find an advantage.
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Gary,
That was an ingenious device. We never saw it coming because, as you said, we had not seen you use it before. This was an example of a simple device to overcome another robot's strengths.
This incident led to our design last year where no one ever got beneath us while our wings were down.