Should FIRST address "ramp bots"?
Something has been bothering me since I spectated at GRL in the second week of regionals, but I wanted to wait until competition was over to bring it up. It seems like there is an alarmingly large number of teams this year who have started either making angles sides/front/backs on thier robots or have added flop down type ramps. I am sure that the intent of these teams was purely for defense so that their robots could not easily be pushed around. It is a very effective strategy and I am sure that I am not the only FIRSTer to have taken note of it. I think that our FIRST community is now faced with one of two choices;
A. Do nothing and expect that the majority of teams next year will have some sort of angled ramp sides, possibly resulting in a much higher incidence of tipped over robots.
B. Petition FIRST to make a rule for next year limiting the angle of any side of the robot.
Please let me know your thoughts on these choices or if I have missed an option.
Thanks
Matt B.
|