[lukevanoort]

I think we can all agree on this: exceptional robots do exceptionally. Yes, 33 has an amazing arm bot that can score really fast, and yes, 1114 can hurdle at a blistering pace. The same goes for 111, 16, 25, 103, 1625, 71, and so on. You could go tit-for-tat for days citing good arms and good shooters and never reach a conclusion over which is the superior design. The only real conclusion you could ever reach by looking at specific robots is that you need a good robot to have a good robot. Duh!

On a purely theory based level with all other things being equal, I think shooters do have a higher upper bound on their hurdling rate than arms - most shooters can save time by not stopping. Arms are clearly more versatile than shooters; it may be possible for some shooters to fire a low-powered shot onto the overpass, but I highly doubt such a strategy will have anywhere near the placing reliability that a decent arm does.

Regardless of the hurdling method used, it is clear that the biggest determinant in a given robot design's effectiveness in this game is its ability to acquire the ball reliably. You can have the most amazing arm/shooter in the world, but if you can't get the ball to it, it is useless. I imagine that, in many cases, this is where shooters fall short. Many of the average and below-average arms fall short here too. All the good hurdlers have mastered acquiring the ball, and that is really what matters in this game, not whether the robot is a shooter or an arm bot.

For the record, my team's robot is both (if we get the shooting portion to work properly).