To all of the slitted ramp bots:
I have seen many ramp bots with a slit cut through the center of their ramps, and for robots like our teams it would be very difficult to get up. How hard would it be to cover the “Slit” and what would you cover it with?
Our ramps don’t have slits in them. This is what they look like:
Would something like that be able to allow your robot to drive up?
I think that the issue with tracked ramps is that those robots (the one you showed and countless others) will not make weight otherwise. Robots always cut it close, and slotted or tracked ramps are built with that weight in mind. Good luck with finding ramps to climb, but i think that most teams who have slotted ramps have that as a final design and won’t be likely to change it.
Our “slit” is there for two reasons.
#1 to allow room for our arm
#2 weight
Our ramp is 37” wide it. The slit is 13” wide. Most robots will fall of the edge before they fall into the middle.
Do you have wheels in the middle?
No, they have an uber-awesome crab drive… like us.
Crab drive is awesome, but it is only uber-awesome when you can climb ramps too.
Wetzel
Our tracks are there for a purpose. We used angle aluminum for the structure with the angle ‘up’ so a driver would have an easier time driving up using the sides as a guard rail to stay on. If you can climb a 17 degree slope and have 1 inch of ground clearance, you can climb us. And I would think that teams would design this into their chassis right from the start.
no slits for us
and have your choice of ramps
I’m not sure that crab drive was the way to go this year. This can be a very defensive game.
Team 45 had a very maneuverable robot and a skilled veteran driver but during the competition in St. Louis they added weight to the robot and traction to their wheels and sacrificed a little maneuverability so they wouldn’t get pushed around as much.
I was amazed at St. Louis how many robots put zero thought into climbing ramps. We never had two robots allied with us that could climb an 18 degree ramp during all the qualification matches. We never got to test our ramp lift until the quarter finals when we finally had two partners who could climb a ramp.
I disagree… But I guess we’ll see in a couple of days…
LOL!! Congrats!! Good point…
I would think that the Robonauts would be picking teams in elimination rounds based on what I have seen so far :yikes:. I would say make sure to pick a ramp bot that your robot can make it up easily. Many teams have slotted ramps becuase of a weight issue, and that is something they can not get around. :ahh:
Do you think Scott’s picture is a bit reminicent of Jimmie Johnson in his Nextel commercial? I like it though. I need a picture of me with that.
Our team has uber small slits in the ramps. You didn’t have to make your ramps out of metal. If you didn’t use metal, you would have enough weight to make no slits. Our ramps are very successful moving ramps. http://kyle.fnsnet.net/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=805
116 didn’t particularly like the “slitted” ramps either. We could get up them fine, but not as quickly and it took considerably more precision. I understand a few teams need the slits to make weight or store an arm, but otherwise, please try and eliminate them for the good of all climbers.
As for 118, you’re going to need to line up as if you were climbing slitted ramps regardless of what ramp you’re climbing. If you approach a ramp “corner first” (leading with a wheel), you will lose contact with one or more of your other wheels as you go up the incline, probably leading to that attempt up the ramp not succeeding.
our team was going to have ramps, and they would be slitted. we can climb up ramps as well as anybody, but we wanted the ramps as a safety net. should we leave them off? b/c our robot is a kick-butt tube scorer (just ask 116). any thoughts would be lovely before palmetto.
