[DougHogg]

I think that the reason FIRST made the score equal to your team's + 2 X the loser's is so that 10 year veterans don't totally beat the new teams. Personally I think that the scoring system needs to go. Other ways need to be found to make it easier for rookies to compete. FIRST found some successful methods this year with the kit of parts having gear boxes, and the mid-field bar favoring low uncomplicated robots. (We chose a rookie team to join us in the elimination round partly because they caused havoc with our bins and stacks in a qualifying match.)

The problem with making agreements with your opponents is that it violates the basic idea of a competition. FIRST had cooperative matches in 2001, but then FIRST decided to go to a competitive format which is what we have this year. Teams expect that other teams will be competing. Audiences expect to see a competition between 2 teams. That is what the game concept is all about--a competition. If you want to change it to where all the teams on the field are working together to compete against other teams of 4, that should be announced as the format for the competition.

To really see the problem with making agreements with your opponents, project that practice forward to all the possible ways of doing so. If all teams left each others stacks standing, no one would have an advantage, so they would have to come up with another way to cooperate to have an advantage: letting all the robots get up on top. Soon everyone would be doing that, and soon there would be no competition because they would be sharing the bins also. (They could push the 45th bin out of the scoring zone.)

Making agreements with your opponents violates the basic idea of what a competition is. People watching such a performance will think that we are really weird. (Dean announced at the kickoff that we need to make the competition friendly to audiences so that we can grow faster and allow all schools to participate.)

For a competition to be fair, everyone needs to know the ground rules. True there isn't anything in the rule book which forbids a player from making agreements with his opponents. Most competitions don't have to worry about such things. What advantage would a tennis player have if he made an agreement with his opponent? Not much. I guess they could agree to split the first 4 sets and then play hard on the last one to save their energy. Wow. Could you imagine the outcry if that happened? Our competition gives points based on matches which affect a team's ranking with everyone, so all the teams are affected when such an agreement is made.

Basically we turn a competition into a fake because suddenly people who are listed as competitors are secretly working together. We had parents who went from LA to Phoenix and watched who were quite upset by what happened with the "agreements" between opponents. And as I said in the other thread on this subject, one team said they were going to vote on whether to withdraw from the competition and go home because they witnessed something occurring which they felt was unethical.

Ultimately we need to get the rules on points changed so that they do not encourage teams to make agreements with the opposition. In the meantime, don't do it, because you will find that it does not bring about the rewards you thought it would. Winning by making hidden agreements would cheapen your victory. You want to win or lose without resorting to hidden agreements with people you are supposed to be in competition with.

Teams should talk to their partners but not their opponents. Otherwise, we will have a fake competition and audiences will not want to support us. Do you want to take the chance of losing your sponsors? Would you like to see a newspaper article stating that some teams quit a FIRST competition and went home because teams were collaberating with their opponents? Think about it.

If we are going to say that each match is a competition between teams of 2, then they need to compete. Otherwise it's a fraud. Fake. Not real. Phony. Dishonest.

The point system does reward making agreements with your opponents, but I have talked to Jason Morella of FIRST and it wasn't intended for teams to do that.

Actually it's a trap (unintentional, but still a trap). My advice to other teams is, don't fall in the trap. I guarantee that you will not be happy if you do. Witness teams in Phoenix who changed their ways, but still wound up feeling like they had lost the respect of the other teams. True, you can gain that respect back. Team 68 wrote a letter apologizing and getting other teams to agree not to make such agreements. I respect them because they took responsibility to restore the integrity of the competition. See the dictionary:
"Compete: To strive against another or others to attain a goal, such as an advantage or a victory."

You are supposed to be competing as a team of 2 this year, not a team of 4!