[Ubiquity]

I love CheeseCake - I think I like the citrus flavor best.

Cheesecaking has been part of FIRST for at least 12 years, but In every FRC competition I have been involved in it always seems that offense is what counts in the qualifiers, and defense is what ultimately decides eliminations. Now while in general a good offense is the best defense, this isn't always the case. This year was unusual, in that the only viable defense was grabbing the cans in auto. (Despite the catchy video, it wasn't "It's all about the totes.." and there was defense.) There was a secondary defense that almost never worked, and that was throwing pool noodles. In the case of the Poofs, that was the ultimate reason they didn't make to Einstein. The most sophisticated teams realized that in eliminations burgling was the key to success, and were prepared to make a super defense robot if they couldn't find one.

Our team only made it to Champs, because the Poofs and Circuits cheesecaked us at SVR. We came to champs as a pure can burglar and nothing else. We ultimately made to the Newton quarter finals as the fourth pick of the 6 seed, and were delighted to have got that far. The Robonauts and Citrus Circuits(the Circuits even brought us a spare set of arms) and both coached and helped tune our can grabbers during qualifiers. They wisely picked the BirdBrains (one of the best human side stackers) and Griffengears (because 118 could modify them as a pure pneumatic 4 can tethered grabber) I don't know if they ever got it working, but I would have loved to see it in action.

I don't think cheesecaking should be banned. I think a game design where defense and offense are more balanced would be better, but you have to have the bar set high enough to challenge the experienced teams, but low enough so the rookies with a KOP base can do something to aid their alliance. The game design committee has a darn hard job, and I think they get it right 99% of the time.

In the old days, I know of at least two occasions where a rookie team showed up at an event with an unassembled KOP and had a working robot by the end of qualifiers. Even at Davis this year one team showed up 40 lbs overweight, and I am proud to say the Apes of Wrath won the GP award for helping them to pass inspection. Instead of banning cheesecaking, we should encourage it.