Ramp bot vs. Arm bot

[SSMike]

Ramp - bot vs. Arm bot
For those who are not familiar with this year’s FIRST Robotics Competition’s game this year (Rack and Roll), please go to this link before reading this post. This will bring you to the animation that every team in the FIRST Robotics Competition watched on Kickoff on January 6, 2007.
mms://sargasso-3.arc.nasa.gov/2007/first/010607kickoff.wmv

For a more detailed description of the rules, please visit this link

http://www2.usfirst.org/2007comp/Man...FRC_Manual.zip

Now back to my original question:

What is better for the FIRST Robotics 2007 Competition, a ramp - bot or a robot that has an arm with no ramp? This is the question that was discussed at our team’s meetings during the first week after kickoff.

An arm may be able to score on the Spider Rack but if the ringers are spoiled it will not help the team a lot. Also if the Spider Rack is shaking, it will be much harder for the robots to put the keepers, ringers, and spoilers on the spider racks. Of course if your robot excels in using an arm or some way to score on the Spider racks, then that will not affect you too much.

Conversely, a Ramp - bot will not be able to score well (if at all) on the Spider Rack. So I would guess that each Ramp - - bot would play defense on the opposing alliance for most of the game. The key attribute of the Ramp - - bot is that is that it can elevate its two alliance partners 4 or 12 inches off the ground at the end of the match. This is extremely important because for each robot that is elevated 4-11.9 inches off of the ground, the alliance is awarded 15 bonus points. For each robot that is elevated 12 inches or more off of the ground, the alliance is awarded 30 bonus points. That is a lot of points if the alliances have trouble scoring on the spider racks, then the alliance with the ramp - - bot will have 30- 60 points (if the robots are able to get up the ramp).

I personally think that the ramp - bot is a better robot, because if you can guarantee 60 points for each game, then you have a pretty good chance of winning the match. This is just my opinion but I would love to hear what everyone else’s opinion and/or criticism. As a Team that will be competing at a Regional and the National Competition, we would like to know what the consensus of other teams or just people interested in FIRST Robotics.

To all Teams that will be competing in the FIRST Robotics 2007 Competition, good luck!

P.S. I am a proud member of Team 250 from Upstate New York. I encourage you to visit our website (http://team250.org/2006/index.php) or e-mail me at m.rossi@team250.org