Quote:
Originally Posted by Kevin Ray
I agree completely with all of your other points but disagree with this one point. (A) Many if not most of the major foul points have been accrued by human players, thus nullifying thousands of man hours which an entire team has devoted to the construction of the robot, not to mention the strategic planning of the game play.
(B) At the two regionals we've attended I (along with hundreds of others I'm sure) thought I'd pop a blood vessel in my head from screaming for the human player (on our alliance) to "JUST INBOUND THE BALL!!!". There were MANY times when a human player ambled over to input the ball or held on to it until the absolute perfect positioning of the receiving robot. In one of our matches he remained behind the driver station getting caught up in the action on the other side of the field while we were waiting for the inbound. --WAY TOO MUCH input/game control on the human player this year. Hopefully this never happens again. A single human player has adversely affected many dozens of match outcomes this year--and that translates into not just affecting his team, good or bad, but the entire 6 teams on the field and, ultimately the overall standings of all teams in the competition.
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One thing I have noticed in my travels to FIRST competition is you can tell a good team from a poor team is how well the human player is trained. Good teams make sure the human player understands the rules and do everything to a teams chances of victory. Bad teams human players do not understand the rules (If they are asking volunteers before the match "What do I do?" that is a very bad sign) do not have a sense of urgency and seem commit alot of penalties. A human player may not win you a match but they can sure lose you one and there is no excuse to have a bad one if you take the time to train one by having them read and understand the rules and teach them simple tactics to avoid penalties (G40 can be avoided by pinning your elbows to your side when you pitch the ball out).