[brian3795]

There seems to be quite a bit of animosity (usually by 3-digit or low-4-digit teams) towards anyone here who would even fathom building a defensive bot...and that's unfortunate. Not every team has the technical and/or financial resources to build a bot that can do it all. Despite our best efforts, we have a rather small team this year, few mentors, and quite a limited budget.

Last year, we worked up to the very last day with an overdesigned bot that was well beyond our technical/financial means. Not much fun for anyone involved, as the students had only a few hours of practice time. This year, our goal is to design a small, fast, and nimble defensive bot that can not only get loose balls over the barrier, but has a small enough footprint that might allow two other bots to share a bridge in the endgame.

Are we shooting low? Not really...because we realize that this competition, in the end, is for the students, and we're not going to spend our 6 weeks like we did last year sweating it out until the very end.

At any rate, we've done our share of analysis of both the game and the comments here, and we think there's a good possibility that a well-designed defensive bot does have a place in this year's competition.