Re: 494........
 

Yes, congrats to 494, and it was great having a pit right next to yours. I must say that i talked to their mentors and found that their strategy was to keep robots from climbing the platform to hang. Our robot hung from the floor, and in one of our matches, we were paired against 494 on the archimedes field. Unfortunately, 494 didnt realize that our robot had the capability to hang from the floor and drove right on to our electronics box. This I can understand being an accident. But was there really cause for them to spin their wheels on top of our electronics box for the rest of the match? We were lucky to have the forethought of a plexi-encased electronics box and that was the only damage (other than the tire marks). 494 didnt appologize to me directly, but i did see one of their mentors go talk to our mentors. Later I found he only explained what happened from their point of view with no apology. No one from their drive team talked to me or our other driver. No one from their team talked to us for the rest of the competition. I know it left a bitter taste in all of our mouths, and finally someone hung our state flag between our pits. I thought that was one of the saddest things to see. I have heard that 494 was very gracious to other teams and for that I applaud them. It is hard to be everyones friend and sometimes ya just cant. Thank you everyone for making nationals a challenging competition!
Katie ~ Arm operator for team 476

Re: 494........
 

Yes, thank you for the apology. As the 121 pit crew captain, your apology is accepted.

However, I am still going to question some judgement on your (494s) part for allowing a part that is sharp enough to slice through a battery cable onto your robot. No hook or any part needs or should be that sharp. :ahh: For one thing, it is a potential Big Ball Popper, which isn't a good thing, and also incidents like this may happen.

I must say that we are also to blame for designing a robot where the battery cable could be in such a spot for this to happen.

No hard feelings (well, very few ;). We still would've liked to have won :D )

Portsmouth Dave
121 Co-captain

Re: 494........
 

I understand that people get angry when they are beat, but can we stop blaming, and just congraulate the winners. They did what they thought was nessessary at that point to win the match. They (494) removed the hook after the realized that it caused serious damage.

During our (1018) autonomous mode, we would go out until we hit something (supposed to be the mobile goal), and latch on. Most of the time we latched the goal, sometimes it was the platform, sometimes other robots. After this happened, we unlatched and continued with the match. We may have cause damage, but it was unintentional. Maybe this is what happened. I was there for that match, but didn't see it clearly. Can we stop assuming that 494 did all this alleged distruction on purpose and just take note of the things that can happen in the heat of a match and design against it next year? Take this as a learning experience, and be a better team through it.

Re: 494........
 

As a member of the 121 pit crew I would also like to thank 494 for the apology. I would just like to point out that our battery cable was not cut by 494’s goal hook. One of the refs on the field cut the battery cables after the electrical tape on the battery started to smoke. This was from a short caused by exposed electrical wires. The wires where damaged by our own hook when we tried to put it up to hang. (Our hook was damaged in a previous match). Sorry for the confusion.

Re: 494........
 

I think that 494 has an amzing robot. They played awesome defence and did what they had to do to win. We can say what we want and be angry at their agressiveness, but their alliance still beat us all, whether they were too agressive or not.

Re: 494........
 

I wasn't at the Nationals but i was at the Peachtree regional with 494. Everyone keeps talking about the "spear..blah blah blah" being too sharp. If it was too sharp don't you think that they might have been caught during inspection? Look at their robot, it is completely protected from any object getting to any vital area. They protected themselves can you protect your robot?

my 2 cents

Re: 494........
 

I would like to say that we really cant have hard feelings about damaged parts on robots. I know some teams didnt like the idea that our robot (team 900) was playing a defensive game. This was the only game that we could play at that point though due to mechanisms failing. We flipped a few robots (on accident, most had wheels that just ran right up our frame, some even during autonomous mode when our robot was sitting still........not to mention we got flipped a total of 2 times during regionals and nationals) but did not try to damage them. Although we caused little or no damage the judges did ask our driver to calm it down some since he was being so aggressive. 494 showed a lot of GP to my team, from letting us use the dyno, to printing our materials list when we couldnt get to a printer. I think that many times in FIRST we let what could be good partnerships with teams drift away just for simple thinks such as a broken part. Really, the inspector should have made the call of it being unsafe/harmful. If it passed by the inspector without trouble at regionals and nationals then it is probably not totally their fault. I know that the inspectors did not allow any sharp edges at all or anything that could be remotely harmful. My team had a robot that was very unprotected on the inside but we suffered little damage. If a robot would have damaged our robot chances are I would have been the one fixing it and I would have no hard feelings against the other team. Accidents happen on the field, and many times from the drivers position on the field they can not see the damage they are doing when they are on the top of another robot. I would just hate to see teams that could learn from each other turned away simply over a few damaged pieces. Hard feelings against another team will just cause more problems. Since the inspectors let it pass I think it is really un-GP to second guess them since they are the officials. Plus I dont think 494 would intentionally harm another robot. Although damage may occur at times in a FIRST competition it doesnt happen often and is usually caused by accidents. An apology is nice when it happens but I dont really expect teams to run up everytime there is an accident and apologize. It is not always only their fault. IMHO 494 went out of their way for other teams by tying it back All I have left to say is congrats to 71, 494, and 435.
-Aaron

Re: 494........
 

When I judge a robot, the single most important factor to me is whether or not the robot is rigid. The Martians robot is one of the most rigid robots I have ever seen, and it therefore one of the best.

Re: 494........
 

On behalf of Team 343, I would like to express our congrats to 71, 494, and 435 on winning the Championship. While we were not in their division this year, we have over the past two years had the opportunity to play both against and with 494 many times. In fact, we had the pleasure of selecting them as an alliance partner in the 2003 Championship. I have gotton to know these guys pretty well, and without question I can't think of another team that I would rather partner with, or play against. Each and every time we have something to remember...in the 2003 Peachtree finals, IRI, 2003 Championship and many matches in between. Congrats guys...can't wait till next year...we are going to get you to the Palmetto Regional. Hey, tell the guys that I finally figured out the cork thing.

Re: 494
 

I'm sure that there some legitimacy to the goal grabber being sharp but to me defense is defense. I distinctly remember an intentional tipping call against 121 in the nats playoffs 2003. I didn't hear an apology for that.

If it was my team, I would not have aplogized.

Re: 494........
 

While I didn't like 494 destroying my team's front end, there is nothing anybody could do to it. We didn't protect it that much because we thought this years game would be primarily offensive.

However this sets a dangerous statement to future FIRST games. Basically teams will noticed that building a simple strong machine will win the game because they can disable any robot trying to score points. I didn't particularly liked last years game because it turned mostly into a defensive game. Personally I like an offensive game better which leads to a high scoring game.

Defense is still a crucial part of strategy though, and should be used. However it shouldn't be a primary feature.

Re: 494........
 

I inspected at GLR, MMR and nationals. When inspectors look for sharp edges on robots, we are more concerned about the potential damage to humans than to robots. The pits can get very crowded and the hike to and from the playing fields can be a dangerous one for competitiors passing each other in the darkened spaces leading to the fields. If a sharp edge is only revealed after the robot expands during play, that is not likely to raise any concern during inspection. Exposed sprokets and chains on arms pose a serious threat to any robot appendage that might end up near the sprocket but it does not violate a rule or pose personal hazard.
As to damage internal to a robot frame, inspectors are looking for loose wires and other parts that may become an entangelment or impede play. Remember that inspection is partly to keep everyone honest to robot rules and partly to insure that teams can play a two minute match. Although a team could have done a great job tywrapping everything into place and burying electrical deep within a robot frame, frequently covers are disposed of as too weighty. Inspectors can and will suggest some kind of cover be installed over vital areas but teams are not reguired under robot rules to do so. I, for one, inform teams of potential dangers during inspection and offer suggestions for solving the issues. Teams are under no obligation to follow suggestions from inspectors and not all inspectors give suggestions during inspection.

Re: 494
 

Well thats the thing about FIRST. We can go out and have a tough well fought match and still be friends after it. Team 126 and 121 SHARED A PIT at UTC. I know some of thier members by name, and countless others by thier face and the conversations we have had. I'm gonna go on to say Andy Grady is my homeboy.

Enought about that tip. Their are no hard feelings because of last year in curie and their should be no hard feelings towards 494. To not apoligize would be ridiculous and shows that 494 truly did not realize what they had done during the match.

I'm sorry to see some people wanting to see 494 and 121 fight over these boards but it's not going to happen.

Re: 494
 

Yeah! That was awesome! We had so much more space, and the 126 guys are awesome! Go Gael Force! :D

I'm going to admit that I was pretty upset over the destruction of the fan and the damage to the electrical system, but I agree with Ricksta (who is my homeboy) that it's a shame that we're trying to fight over this.

It was an accident. 494 did not TRY to destroy Rhode Warrior VI. So let's move on.

Re: 494........
 

494 had a good robot that was very tough. They played a little rough but the one thing that i am worried about is that team will soon just have a pure steel box that has X motors running a robot that has a X speed trans.

I give them congrats and hope that other teams will build good robots yet not pure destruction machines.