[Travis Hoffman]

Thank you all for the feedback and links to pics. We actually started testing the same idea you had, Dana, only using Kevlar string. That's the yellow stuff you see tied to each of the legs underneath the ramp and platform. Turns out we didn't have enough time to find the ideal string length. Your feedback gives me confidence we were moving in the right direction. I question the reliability of the string under repeated abuse, so we'll probably double or triple up the tie-downs just to be safe.

The ramp side unfolds very nicely. As I said in the pic descriptions (I posted 2 pics of the bot), we may modify the platform side to be a dual ramp/platform combination ala Team 188 and others. Our ultimate direction depends quite a bit on the teams that are at each competition we attend and their overall capabilities.

In case you hadn't figured it out, we plan to be an all defense bot with (hopefully) fast ramp capabilities at the end. We hope the ramp provides an inviting and easy target for our alliance partners to climb without fear of falling off....or falling in. The all defense and quick offense at end game is pretty much what drove our success in 2004 (we were one of the fastest from carpet to hanging around). We had gotten away from that the past few years, and I'm glad to see it back. I just hope our drivers are ready to keep up with some of the zippy ringer scorers that are out there. It won't be a cakewalk, by any means.