I think there should be a defense-less game every 3-4 years, so each set of kids gets to understand the wonderful engineering potential of precision engineering under a controlled environment. Recycle Rush feels like an experiment in that regard, and I hope defense-less (and therefore bumperless and geometry-boundless) games are attempted again. Killough Drive on Einstein
- yes please!
I don't think RR is a good example overall due to the noodles and autonomous races. Noodles in cans were a great idea. Noodles on the field were just pointless given the reduced visibility of the field at high levels of play. In hindsight, if we replaced the noodles with ultra-light poof balls and made the cans have no lids, this could have been an awesome game. Bonus points for scoring your balls in the opponents' capped stacks, or some other such shenanigans. Negative points for knocking the opponent's stack over in attempting to do so.
For defense-based games, we're in a modern era of COTS 3-CIM gearboxes. Teams put little to no engineering into these things when they use them as the primary mechanism for defense. Unregulated drive train power simply means that the offense-based teams need to allot 5.4 more lbs to the drive train in order to beat the defensive teams to a point on the field - meaning the challenge for offense-based teams is even harder to accomplish due to less weight available. Bumpers, frames and hard-mounted objects must all withstand a few hundred Joules more during impacts (based upon 0.5*m*v^2 at 8' acceleration distance).
I love safe zones and exclusion zones on a field. Exclusion zones represent an area of the field where a team must explicitly design for it in order to gain access to it, such as 2010, 2012 and 2013. They can be a way to play mind games with particularly good defensive drivers and add a whole new plethora of strategic and match flow possibilities at high levels. They can be a way for a simple defensive robot to significantly delay an offensive robot which cannot contend with them at all. I'd much rather spend extra engineering energy on that type of defense avoidance than spending thoughtless money and weight on the drive train.