Quite a tough game this year
 

We bear quite a few battle scars from our first outing of the season. I could see how a team might get knocked out from damage sustained during competition. Hopefully that doesn't happen too often.

Seems like this game could have been structured just a bit differently to make it a bit less aggressive and thereby less damaging, but that's only my HO.

Re: Quite a tough game this year
 

I don't think it was expected that this game would be so defense focused. At Gull Lake there was almost always some robot part laying on the field after each match. I haven't seen any robots break so badly that they couldn't compete, but there is no doubt the bots are getting hammered this year.

Re: Quite a tough game this year
 

However this game might be very "impact prone", teams should have built robots to sustain competition. I see it year after year, teams build robots and mechanisms that are very questionable support wise and seem to be very easily broke. With a game that leads to teams having appendages that extend beyond your safe bumper zone, heavy defense should be expected; especially when they can keep the 1 scoring object away from you to easily limit your scoring. Maybe teams will learn a valuable lesson or maybe they will continue to be pissed at the way teams play. That being said, our team was/is primarily focused on offense, but you can bet that we will play heavy D while waiting for our next pass/cycle. Please, make your robot game ready! This is NOT battle bots but a full speed collision from robot to robot could leave scars as if it was.

Re: Quite a tough game this year
 

We had one shooter arm broken off, the other severely bent, both the front and rear frame cross braces bent in about two inches, our battery box shattered, our belly pan dislodged, and our PDB dislodged (disabled for the last minute of our first elimination match and lost by 3 points)...but we arrived at every match 100% capable...and we'll be back stronger than ever at the DC Regional.

Re: Quite a tough game this year
 

Coming from a defensive team, we were a huge factor on the field and had a huge effect. If we could block off two teams on the other alliance from getting their ball it was a huge effect on the team. But if our robot happened to stop working it was terrible the score would rise very rapidly. So defense is a big thing this year, more so than I expected!

Re: Quite a tough game this year
 

we had 8 hours of practice on our robot prior to attending WPI, without having a single broken wheel on the robot, we have Andy mark high grips on the front and Andy mark rubber wheels on the back. we brought to extra wheels of each with us to the event. by the end of the first day we had broken two wheels and by the start of eliminations we had a single spare rubber wheel left. low and behold during semi final 1-2 we broke our final spare. basically caused by the brutality of this years game, I would not change anything with our drivetrain though as it is absolutely amazing, just have to make sure we stockpile wheels for Hartford. although this game is brutal on robots its absolutely awesome for me as a driver as I like to push and bang others around.

Re: Quite a tough game this year
 

When I heard there were no safe zones I knew defense was going to be a big part of the game. And no barriers to keep teams from being relentlessly attacked? Here comes the high speed ramming. Wait til champs. You think you've seen violence so far just you wait! It'll be 2007 all over again!

Re: Quite a tough game this year
 

in one of our qualification matches we pulled an opponents surgical tubing all the way across the the field brought our robot to a stop pretty much:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQuI...HTX 5jbOzgMZU

Re: Quite a tough game this year
 

^^^ This

And for those who have been around a while it will also be like 2006, 2003 and 2002.

It's the nature of the beast when you have a wide open playing field like this.

My team (3548) while playing defense got our sister team's (1188) intake roller stuck in our chain between the chain and the sprocket. Ask anyone at the Howell district and they will tell you it was brutal. I had to take the chain off on the field.

Re: Quite a tough game this year
 

Well, being my first year I didn't expect it. It's pretty interesting and kind of fun though.

Re: Quite a tough game this year
 

Well, I'd be shocked if a team can rip 1114's arm right OFF this year...

Re: Quite a tough game this year
 

I don't see how you didn't expect a lot of defense. There's one ball on the field for your alliance. If each robot has the ball for an equal amount of time, you should be spending 67% of your time without the ball. What should you be doing if you don't have the ball? Playing defense. We constructed with robustness in mind because we thought heavy defense was an obvious factor this year.

Re: Quite a tough game this year
 

This is so true.

This is the first time we have had an open carpeted playing field with no protected zones for all the current students.

They don't even know the carnage of the games befoe bumpers were required, they have only been mandatory on all sides of a robot since 2008 IIRC.

In 2003, 2004 and 2006 it was not uncommon to see teams straigtening frames between matches. A lot of teams have forgotten these lessons and don't build for contact anymore.

This year will definitely be as much about durability and reliability as having a solid robot.

Re: Quite a tough game this year
 

Let's get ready to Cccccccccccccrrruuuummmbleee!