Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Blair
The important thing is efficiency and ease of use. You could argue, depending on the setup, that a one inch lip is significantly harder to negotiate than a shallow ramp. And if your lift fails, mechanically or time wise, it fails. No points. If a ramp is well constructed, its the skill of the driver decides the points earned.
But, I will agree with you that the webcasts suggested lifts often proved more effective than ramps- generally because of the lack of side guards. Week two and on may be a different story.
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Well it works both ways, I have seen teams with ramps that got caught as they lowered them rendering them useless. What I was referring to was between a well designed ramp and well designed lift (locks into place as to not fail after the match), then the lift will always be better, if only because a team with very little ground clearance can get on. Yes some like to drive up a gradual ramp rather then a 1 inch lip, which was the very reason we added a 8 inch gradual slop on our end of our platform. Time wise I would argue they are the same, the time it takes for a team to drive up a ramp successfully without falling of is about that of lifting two robots.
But as you said, only time will tell which are better and more reliable.