The only way to go completely out of bounds is to leave the floor. So flying/levitating or climbing/falling over the wall come to mind on how to achieve that. I have seen one robot fall over but the base was still in the confines of the field boundary haplessly laying there.
I sure would like to see a flying Vex robot though! (with just Vex parts)
Previous game Q&A had flying robots would be under intense scrutiny for safety. I imagine it will be the same again this year, but I am sure Karthik will answer you with the latest ruling.
If I remember correctly, someone did some calculations and determined that the motors don’t have enough force to lift their own weight in any configuration. That isn’t even taking into account the rest of the robot.
So here’s the thing you have to consider (not only for this, but any application). “Power” is fixed for us electrically. Watts = Volts x Amps. Watts is the unit of power. Volts is set by the battery, Amps is limited by the motor (and cortex) PTC. Therefore watts (the power available to us for the system) never changes.
As the Illuminati points out:
Changing the gearing of a motor affects Torque: we trade lower speeds for higher torque, higher speed for lower torque.
In vex U it was ruled we can 3-d print our own motor casing and remove all the internal gearing. With a much lighter casing it could be possible, but someone would have to do the math to confirm this.
Even if its possible though, I don’t think its practical for Starstruck. You would waste a lot of time flying around, picking up and dropping the stars. You would essentially have a far-zone dumper with a 1 star capacity. Plus if your opponent is catapulting stars over, its just a matter of time before one of them accidentally hits you.
