Wood vs. Steel Barrier

[mdiradoorian]

That is true that team test there prototypes onto he wooden barriers and are successful but I can bet that some of those team will have a problem at their district/regional competitions. That is why I am telling my team don't rely on the success of the wooden barrier.

[pfreivald]

We covered our barrier with aluminum flashing to simulate the coefficient of friction and rounded edge in an affordable manner -- it made no difference to our drive train...

But yeah, a lesson I had to learn a half-dozen times in FIRST and am now paranoid about is this: never engineer anything so that it barely works. All values are nominal, and assume that if they're off, they'll be off in a manner disadvantageous to your robot.