At the kickoff it was stated that while you may have your robot touching one side of the ramp wall or even pushing against it, you cannot have the robot against both side walls of the ramp. What if a robot were to be say an inch away from both side walls? Is this legal? Obviously the spirit of the rule is to prevent one robot from blocking the entire ramp, but has FIRST left a loophole in this rule that enables a team to come so close to blocking it by stretching all the way accross but leaving say and inch on either side? 
If anyone knows, our team would really appreciate an answer asap as this could play a major role in strategizing and etc before we make final decisions on our robot…thanks for your time
Rule SC11 reads:
You are full on the platform as long as you are not touching:
“Both of the inside platform/ramp structure sidewalls at the same time.”
To me, this means you can be touching one wall, and as long as they can put a piece of paper between the other side of your robot and the other wall, you are fine.
Read the rules - a lot of the questions asked on these forums are in there.
Also… i do not think this rule was meant to stop teams from blocking the ramp - in fact, i think they expect it. The rule was put in place to keep teams from pressing on both walls to keep them stable.
Tom
I agree with Tom on this one. The rule is meant to stop teams from pressing against both polycarbonate side walls. I also think FIRST expects teams will block the ramp as a strategy.
I agree and think they know that if they allow a mechanism to push against both walls, it is likely to put too much force on the walls and possibly cause them to break.
Contrary to popular belief, polycarbonate does get brittle with age and will eventually crack/shatter.