Carpet for Practice Field

[Windwarrior]

Our team in Overland Park, Ks. is a newbie this year, but are well funded due to a local foundation. We also have been provided the use of a 3300 sq.ft. warehouse space for building and testing.

We want to build a 2/3 court playing field, complete with the appropriate carpet.

My questions are these:

1. How important is it to have the exact type of carpet as the official playing field?

2. Will about any indoor/outdoor tight shag carpet work, as opposed to using the official carpet type?

3. Is the same carpet type used year-to-year?

4. What are anyone's thoughts on using wheelchair caster wheels on the 'bot to improve mobility?

5. More generally, how important is speed and mobility in this type of competion?

Thanks for any replies. If this is the wrong forum for this type of question, I apologize in advance!! (Still trying to figure out this board!!)

Scott Davis
Mentor-Team #1777
Vikings Robotics