[d.courtney]

This years game is a lot about extremes, you'll have your speedy teams that can put ringers on with ease, sporting some omni wheels (I see a lot of them coming in this year), then you'll have your slightly slower defense bot that can block 90% of teams from scoring and sporting a ramp. Those are the primary designs I see, yes you may stray by being a bit slower/less maneuverability so people don't push you around, but still have a great arm, or you could add a small arm to that defense bot to get the bottom and middle rows, but it is extremes we will see.

At the regionals (especially the earlier ones) you will see the ramp bots holding about 6 of 8 top spots, being able to stop robots from scoring and getting a possible 60 big ones, is huge, especially when all the kinks haven't been worked out of the robots. But by the Nationals, I see a different story, a flip around 2 of 8 are ramp bots, you will have lots of scoring robots and all that can do well, all have had tweaks done.]

my team has decided that a ramp/defense bot is likely best bet, we have had very stable drive trains in the past, and have been able to push up to three robots at once (Waterloo 2005), and focusing on a ramp everyone can get up allows us to a possible 60 points.