[AdamHeard]

I can only think of one recent year, 2003, where HDPE was a surface you HAD to interact with to be competitive, and even then, the most dominant team just used roughtop tread. 111 didn't win because they could push, they won becuase they employed a superior strategy for controlling the top; ramps and a crab drive.

Since most FIRST fields are mostly carpet, and if HDPE is used as a floor it will probably be minimal, I would suggest you really think twice before designing a base for HDPE. As, I imagine the base optimized for HDPE would not be optimized for carpet, and would require a good deal of new design and research. I believe this time, and possible weight/complexity, would be better spent on other aspects of your robot design.

Bah, what I'm really trying to say is, don't just look at a problem at face value and say, I'm going to solve you for what you appear to be at face value. In 2004, teams thought they had to climb onto the HDPE platforms to hang from the bar, some made radically complex drivetrains to achieve this. When I saw 60/67/254 hang from the ground (and 60/254 at AMAZING speed as they used their drive motors to power their winch) and completely ignore the platform, I was inspired. Not only did they not have to design any radical crazy drivetrain to climb onto the platform, allowing them to stick with a simple 6 wheel, they were able hang faster than anyone.

I highly doubt that, "Lets push", "No, lets push HARDER!", will ever be a good strategy in FIRST. You can't mention 71 in 2002 as a counterexample, as their extreme pushing ability was just one piece of the puzzle that made their robot dominant that year.