[Gray Adams]

We allocate 30-45 seconds to balancing (what a handy warning sound they play at 30 seconds to remind you that you better hurry!), take another (hopefully) predetermined robot with us, and get up there. We ask the bottom robot to push us, and when they usually can't, we drive slowly enough forward that we never lose bumper contact. If we overshoot, we try to do the same thing going upwards. Nothing scares me more than when the other driver starts to drive up fast enough that they break contact. I really don't want anybody to flip my robot.

But when things happen in the elimination rounds and you suddenly have to go into an unplanned double balance with another team, it's good to follow that strategy. If you both can and have balanced before, stick to that, don't move fast, and don't do anything drastic. You should be talking, quite possibly yelling, to your coaches about what you see, how you feel about what's happening, and what you want. Just let it all out there and leave it to your coach to decide what to tell the other coach/driver.

We only flipped one robot at our event, and they got flipped next time they played the exact same way. They only drove halfway onto the bridge before stopping. We tried to push them off the bridge, but they came back, and they wouldn't listen to our coach telling them we would do it alone.

You either need to know what you're doing, listen to someone who knows what they're doing, or get away from the bridge.