[Steve W]

I know that our robot can lift the 2X ball 13 feet in the air and we only fell over 1 time during practice and we popped right back up. We built our robot with the lowest center of gravity that we could. All motors were kept as close to the ground as posible. There is a chance that we could be pushed over but ANY robot can be tipped given the right circumstances. We also built for power and a rough game. When looking at the game we figured that there might be as much pushing as last year. We also built to hang from the outside so that we could keep our center of G low and not have to worry about fighting for a very small place at the top.

In other words we came as prepared as we could. There seemed to be more problems with teams flipping or getting hung up on those stupid purple balls than by other robots. Remember, engineering is not about building an object with the least amout of tolerance. You need to test beyond what you feel is normal. FIRST tests us in so many ways. I personally feel that we should have been allowed more weight because of the complex nature of this years game. FIRST did notgrant this and so our robot needed a diet to lose weight. We had to decide whether we wanted to lose strength or function. The robot ended up losing mostly strength but also some function. We knew what we wanted and hopefully came close.

We need to play the game as it was written just as we have to build to FIRST's specs. To be aggressive and rough is one thing but to deliberately damage another robot is unacceptable.