[jee7s]

I wouldn't call defense "the dark side"...that sounds far too ominous.

My experience goes back to 1998, when there weren't even alliances much less coopertition. Oh, and no bumpers either.

I can remember seeing steel framed robots designed to punish. I remember teams rewinding motors to get the performance they wanted. I remember collisions so hard that steel welds broke and bolts went flying.

FIRST has come a long way since then. And, yes, I've observed that newer teams have been surprised when good defense shows up. But, if it's clean defense (no contact inside the frame perimeter, no long distance ramming, etc) then it's part of the game.

Speaking specifically about my team (FRC 2789), we play hard stifling defense. Heck, we've cleanly played defense under our opponent's pyramid. The bot has dents and scratches galore. And yes, there is risk to this strategy. We've accidentally committed penalties, we've had disagreements with referees, we've had arguments with teams. But, after actually looking at the rules and discussing the situation, emotions tend to die down and things generally go in our favor. Oh, and we've been picked by a #1 and a #2 seed, and been Finalists and Winners this year.

So, just because it lowers the score, don't think defense is all bad. Actually, it can lead to some more exciting matches when a good defender can shut down a good scorer by exploiting a weakness.

All part of the game.