One more '06 robot thread

[Lil' Lavery]

I noticed an interesting trend after championship. This trend was upheld at IRI. I realised I never made a post about it, so here it is.

At the ultimate level of competition (Championship and IRI being what are widely regarded as the most competitive events), teams with vertical shooting wheels won.

The Championship winners:
296-Two vertical wheels
217-2 sets of 2 vertical wheels
522-Two vertical wheels

The Championship finalists:
25-A single vertical wheel
968-a single vertical wheel
195-herder

Einstein Semi-finalists:
503-vertical shooter
451-vertical shooter
1139-Pnuematic Launcher
177-not sure, but I think it was a vertical shooter
1126-vertical shooter
201-vertical shooter

IRI Champions:
71-Vertical Shooter
1625-Vertical Shooter
910-Horizantal shooter (but they played defense primarily)

IRI finalists:
233-Vertical Shooter
217-Vertical Shooter
1272-Herder

Now, there were many highly competative horizontal shooters (the triplets, 343, 176, etc.), but it seems that the ultimate level of competition belonged to the vertical shooters? Did backspin really make that huge of a difference? Was it just a coincidence? Are vertical shooters simpler to design, build? What are your thoughts?