[TRWSHSHLX]

Part of the challenge of FTC is perform under pressured circumstances, whether the pressure comes from deliberately occurring penalty on the opposing alliance to knock your team's robot out or pushing your team's robot around.

It is much easier to prevent another team from getting control of a crate and being penalized versus having an amazingly efficient robot that lifts crates high in the air. And again, how good really is a team's robot if they can't score under defense?

INTERACTION is part of the game, and it will always be part of the game in some degree. One easy way to eliminate interaction is just to have robots run on separate fields. But FIRST doesn't do that. Why? Because INTERACTION is an essential element. It's simple to just have the alliances' run on two separate field to ensure there are NO interaction at all but that's never the case and that will never be the case because part of the challenge is to build robust, efficient robot that's capable of functioning in more than the realm of the perfect scenario. For Bowled Over! the GDC implemented the protected zone but there will still be interaction.

Now onto the morality side, in FTC (along with VRC & FRC) you have to SCORE to win. In most of the examples I saw, the teams that were being heavily defended still won, because their robots are more efficient. The defensive alliance still has to outscore the other alliance to win. Yes, occurring a penalty to prevent the powerhouse robot from scoring a lot helps, but they still have to score.

In my opinion, the best alliances that deserve to win will still come out on top. They may not have the best robot or the robot that lifts the crates the highest, but overall (strategy & robot) they are the best. As for the teams that are being heavily defended, by participating in the challenge, doesn't your team agree to the rules? The rules leave holes for defense and that principle should be included while brainstorming ideas & building the robot.

It's all part of the game, and may the best team / alliance win.