[ChrisH]

No robot is unstoppable. But some are harder to deal with than others. We have developed a strategy to deal with 68 or other similar robots and get our robot onto our side of the field so that maybe we can score some points.

Will it work? only time will tell. Whether it works or not, it WILL be very hard on all of the robots involved, maybe the field too. Any team in a match with any robot that can completely block the field is in a fight for their competitive life. They will take all means possible to prevent full deployment. If they are smart enough with how they do so, they certainly could damage their opponent. This may result in damage to the field in the process.

Suppose our original strategy fails and our robot and it's partner are trapped on the far side of the field where we are unable to score any points. What do we do then? Curl up in a corner and wait for time to run out? Not hardly.

In our case. the only option is to go down to minimum height and keep slamming against the robot blocking our way under the bar. If our partner is capable of going under the bar, then they will probably be right there working with us.

Now unfortunately, the field gets broken. The bar was never intended to stand up to two robots charging it repeatedly at full tilt.

We didn't break the bar, we never touched it. We slammed into another robot in an attempt to accomplish a legitimate game objective, namely cross to the other side of the field and score points. You could say it was our fault, because we repeatedly slammed into our opponent. But there is also a rule against designing your robot to use the field for support. Which the blocking robot obviously was. Therefore since our slamming was intended to accomplish a legitimate game objectiveand therefore legal, and the other robot was breaking a rule, using the field for reaction force, they must be at fault.

FIRST's primary objective in the design of the field elements is safety for human beings. The second is to have it around for the next round. Any robot that interacts with the bar much more than incidental contact is definitely in conflict with the second objective.

68 and any other teams that built similar robiots took a technical risk. One of the posts at the time 68 published the first photos of their robot said they realized that their design was controversial and that they were knowingly taking that risk. It sounds as if they lost, Oh Well.

Some of us built Stackers or King of the Hill robots, six weeks from now we might be kicking ourselves too. That is the nature of the game.

The company I work for plays a similar game continually. Sometimes we lose, and it hurts, big time. It's not easy to watch five or six years of sweat go to waste in the few seconds it takes to announce the contract winner, not to mention hundreds of millions in development money.

Other times we win and that makes the defeats worthwhile, because they are never a total loss, you always learn something...
if you're paying attention.