Scouts at Week 1 events,
What has been the rate of success of passive climbers at your event so far?
A friend of mine predicted to me earlier in the build season that the rate of success of these climbers would be relatively low. After considering a few factors that I won’t go into yet, I decided I agreed. Having watched only a couple matches so far, I fear that the competitiveness of this style of climber is worse than we had predicted.
We managed to pull off a successful mid bar climb in our first match by raising the intake to adjust our center of gravity (FIM Calvin Dist/Qual 6). It was our rookie driver’s first time driving—and it showed big time—so I think it’s definitely doable if you have everything dialed in right, but if something is off you’ll have a bad time.
I haven’t watched any 2022 matches, but passive climbers were mostly useless in 2013, and I expect the same this year.
Added (after two 
):
Perhaps not. It was my first official year as mentor, and I saw one event. Most of the passive climber hooks were either too high (resulting in the robot touching the carpet) or too low (resulting in not getting on the rung at all). I suspect that the red and blue pyramids were at different heights off the carpet. I remember many questions about rung height, which I answered from the rules until I realized I was unintentionally spreading misinformation.
And OBTW, none of the frisbee feeder stations were within a half inch of the height specified in da rules. Thankfully, they were made of polycarb and the HPs could push them to get the frisbees into our intake.
We used a passive climber with solid success in 2013. But the low bar was much lower that year and thus easier to manage in terms of length of lever-arm and consequent tip of robot. Plus there were 4 sides of the pyramid from which to choose depending on driver sight lines.
I don’t think I saw the same 2013 that you did.
1108 seems to be getting very easy consistent positive climbing with our everbot style system for now. Not seeing many ways it can fail.
Are a little uneasy that the venue bars will be exactly the same height as we’ve practiced with, but we have a backup plan for adjustable height.
My biggest curiosity is what percent of robots will try passive climbers.
I think most of the failures are due to either lack of care in their construction or lack of practice in using them. The concept still seems solid, but many teams trying them haven’t really tested it.
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