Every team I have mentioned this to in my area had not fully understood what qualifies as “scaling the tower” so I thought I would share.
A ROBOT has SCALED the TOWER if, at the conclusion of the MATCH, the ROBOT:
A. is in contact with a unique RUNG, and
B. has all of its BUMPERS fully above the height of the low GOALS.
This excerpt from the manual does not state anything about the robot being required to be completely above the height of the low goal. The only requirement is that your bumpers rise above the low goal. I hope this helps anyone who was planning on building a mechanism to raise their robot well above where it needed to be.
Is this in reference of teams trying to go all the way up? Sure, the bumpers have to go above the low rung, but you can’t extend below the bumpers if thats what you’re referring to (e.g. pushing yourself up) as per the blue box in R22
A ROBOT deploys a MECHANISM which lifts the BUMPERS outside
the BUMPER ZONE (when virtually transposed onto a flat floor). This
violates R22.
On the other hand, space around the tower is going to be tight, especially if there’s a lot of wide robots. Having a robot that can lift well above everyone else’s bumpers might be beneficial.
That rule mentions bumpers which move/actuate which is not the misconception I’m attempting to target here.
Bumpers are not going to be flush with the floor and are going to have some amount of clearance from the floor. A lot of people here in the county were under the assumption that the whole robot, wheels and all, had to be above the low goal. With the rule clarification in mind, a robot that builds bumpers that are fixed at the maximum height are going to have to scale less distance than those who fix their bumpers at a lower height.
That is true as well. It’s another thing to keep in mind if you want to be more desirable and flexible for an alliance.
Edit: Another issue is the danger of being knocked off your rung and crashing to the floor if a robot below your bumpers pushes you up by mistake while climbing. Make sure your robot will not let go easily from upwards force!
If a robot’s width, including bumpers, is wider than the face of the tower there is a potential risk of contact. A bumper from Robot 1, traveling faster upwards than a bumper from Robot 2 (who has climbed higher than Robot 1) can push into Robot 2’s bumper given the previous scenario. Robot 2 is now being acted upon by Robot 1’s bumper from below. This would assume the chassis of one of the robots swings closer to contact the face of the tower when they begin their climb but that is very likely to be the case for a number of robots. Vertical ascension is a given.