Ramp bot and level 1 climb?

[NotaJoke]

It is a lot harder than you think to convince your alliance partners to drive on top of your robot, regardless of how well you design the ramp.
You'd be better off spending resources to try and hang at the third level for yourself. The systems would be similar levels of complexity, and even if you can only pull off a level 2 hang you still earn the same number of points as you would have with a ramp bot.

[JesseK]

Originally Posted by NotaJoke

It is a lot harder than you think to convince your alliance partners to drive on top of your robot, regardless of how well you design the ramp.
You'd be better off spending resources to try and hang at the third level for yourself. The systems would be similar levels of complexity, and even if you can only pull off a level 2 hang you still earn the same number of points as you would have with a ramp bot.

Maybe.

For bots that could only hang 10, a 20-point ramp/lift is a very tempting pick if it's properly executed. There would have to be a way for the lifted bot's c.g. to remain close to the pyramid though.

I know we'd modify our bot to accommodate a good lift bot (appendage that touched the first rung) if that bot could climb for 10+ while lifting us for 20. Of course, we would want the lifting bot to prove itself to be stable, either on the practice field and/or on the field with a brave guinea pig. The 10climb/20lift combo may be easier for a team than a 20-pt self climb, depending on the team's resources and which design they come up with that's better.

The real difficulty will be doing a flexible design that can handle multiple drive train dimensions, shapes, and types.

[Andy A.]

I had a similar thought early on, but aside from climbing sequencing rules, the 54" cylinder rule makes this pretty difficult to do. A 30" wide ramp, about what you'd need to ensure the majority of robots could comfortably fit on a ramp, would end up being about a 33 degree incline if you don't have a flat 'landing' on top of the bot. That's pretty steep for FIRST.

Depending on the length of the ascending robot and it's bumper configuration it's likely that most 'bots would get hung up and be unable to proceed. You might be able to 'help' by driving your own robot into theirs, but it becomes pretty hairy for a lot of reasons. The ascending bot is now also at a very different arrival angle to the horizontal bar it'd presumably hang on. Will it's mechanism work with that different geometry? Maybe, maybe not. I wouldn't want to bet on it.

Like I said, that's on top of rules regarding how a legal climb is preformed. It's a clever thought, but it seems like the climbing rules are designed to discourage/prevent it entirely. The intent is pretty clear- climb means climb, and there isn't any clear way to circumvent that.

[Bruceb]

My thought was that this would be an illegal climb because the entire first pipe is in zone 1 not zone 0.
At least that is the way I read the picture
Section 3.1.5.2 figure 3-4 shows this, I think.

[PVCpirate]

If I understand it correctly, this would be a legal 20 point climb. The climbing bot touches level 0 (the floor), level 1(the first bar) as it drives up your ramp and then level 2 (the second bar) when it hangs. As for whether it's a good idea or not, I'll leave that up to you.

[pfreivald]

Most teams will barely trust themselves to lift their robot off the floor. Many fewer will trust another team to do so.

Not that it can't be done. In Rack N Roll we had some killer ramps that others used quite often (until 1511 totally killed our play, which we good-naturedly shake our fists at to this day), but it took some proving before others were willing to risk it.