Re: 494........
 

I hope that this changes the quality of the robots. We had a problem last year where a team sent one of their devices into our robot and pulling wires out. As a result we completely enclosed everything with a 1/16" belly pan to protect the interior of the robot. This also made it easier to mount things. Teams that had bad experiences this year should remember them for next year and try to fix them. Unless they do the four team alliance thing again, there will always be defence.

Re: 494........
 

I have carefully followed this thread wanting to jump in many times but not wanting to fan any negative flames against our team I held back. In true F.I.R.S.T. fashion this thread has come full circle and it appears that team 121 understands that we do not go out to damage other robots, and when we were told about the damage we removed the goal grabber on our own, officials did not ask us to remove it. Being friends is an important aspect of F.I.R.S.T. I hope that this will lead Jeff, Kyle, Matt, Rick, MrToast, Joe M121, and the rest of your team to become close friends with our team, maybe you can introduce us to team 126 they sound like a great team too. Thanks to all the teams that have supported us publicly and privately through this learning experience.

Re: 494........
 

I was not at the championship but did play with the Martians at Peachtree this year. The goal of an engineer should be to build a machine to accomplish a task and make it tough, easy to repair, modular, etc. I rememeber Woody at my first kickoff encouraging everyone to do one thing and do it well. The Martians certainly did one thing well - they built a robust machine! That should be the primary goal of every team out there. You can't play if you're broken. I only witnessed the Martians playing rough when they were played rough with. Don't try to give out what you can't take. My utmost respect and congratulations for team 494. Everyone else should take note - theirs is a GREAT team. In real life when a machine breaks (no matter what the cause) we ask ourselves: how can we make it better next time?