Quote:
Originally Posted by Grim Tuesday
I feel that HPs have a bit too much of a role this year: A team with a good human player can throw all the way to the zones, entirely eliminating the midfield defense. What is the fun in watching a robot just hang tubes?
It is demoralizing for a team who worked hard for six weeks on their robot to be beat by a human player.
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This is the wrong way to look at it.
I LOVE good human player interactions, I think it makes the game more exciting. ESPECIALLY for the teams that maybe don't finish their robot or have the robot not come out the way they wanted it, it still allows them to be a valuable alliance member. It does not cost money, or require any special equipment, experienced engineers etc. to be a good human player. Just practice. If your team takes the human player role as seriously as the robot and has that person spend their build time practicing then any team can have a great human player. You just have to value the role as importantly from day 1, which all of the "successful" teams do. It can't be an after thought decision made at the competition.
It's no different than saying it's demoralizing to be beat by a great robot because they had engineers, and machine shops and money...FIRST isn't fair. Dean has said this many times, but I think that there is no advantage given to any team at the beginning of build season for the human player role. Every team has equal opportunity to have a great human player.
FWIW I think 2004 was the best human player year.