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Re: Do We have a trend here?
I, too think I see a trend... and I am not sure if I like it...
We were on the winning side of the quarter final in St. Louis that had two ties.. it was tremendously exciting to be part of that...
We are just a second year team and I was very proud of the Alliance we had there... but on to the rest of the story...
I posted the following elsewhere here:
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I do want to clarify something about the semi-final matches. This is where it became very physical... 1098 was again damaged and couldn't compete... and in the very final match after withstanding a pounding by Team 16 ...even our beloved Luci robot couldn't get the grippers to work because the contact had bent the rod on our pneumatic actuator. I guess this is a viable strategy as it wasn't flagged. We were on the verge of capping a small goal with 12 balls and couldn't open our grippers...so we didn't go on to the finals.
I just am sending out a warning to all teams who use grippers and collect balls and perform these tasks.... the big hangers will just pound you into submission... you may not be able to do what you are designed to do because of the physical damage you may have done to you. It is not just pushing around... it is IN YOUR FACE, hammering and slamming with whatever they have to do it with... reminiscent of battle bots rather than the FIRST competition we all enjoy.
My personal thoughts are that this is a dangerous trend... but it is within the rules and I cannot fault teams for using the strategy as long as it is legal.
More power to them...
All three of our alliance's robots were damaged in the semi at St. Louis.
I am sure many others were too...
I, for one, really don't want this competition to be about robots beating on each other.... FIRST has more to say than the "strongest robot" should dominate another...
Please don't think that I am complaining about any particular teams... everything done was within the rules and using those rules are part of the game... I only speak to the greater good of the competition as it matures...
It does seem to be a trend though... last year we had quite abit and now this year its even worse...... anyway that's my two cents
We will be busy in Cleveland on practice day repairing our robot and we will continue to try and accomplish the game using our strategy...
Our robot WAS pretty robust... until the last match, our robot had competed in 4 quarter final matches and 2 semi-finals with no more repairs than just changing the battery...
thanks for reading
Bob Steele
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