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Originally Posted by Rick TYler
Seriously, and no disrespect intended, if you want to see your robot hammered into an unrecognizable pile of junkyard rubble, compete in BattlebotsIQ. It's a version of Battlebots for high school teams.
Then the rest of us who prefer FIRST can get back to solving intricate engineering problems without the worry of being repeatedly whacked by an armless/towerless 14-inch high smashbot. (It might be effective, but it sure isn't technically interesting.)
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"Repeatedly whacked?" - You would hope the referees would disable such a bot, according to the rules of the game. Change that to "aggressively pushed/blocked", and that 14-inch high brick on wheels becomes a factor you must consider, because it's a legal PART OF THE GAME. There are two ways you can account for the presence of this *pest* in your midst:
1. Take defense into account when initially designing your solution to this "intricate engineering problem". If, for some reason, you totally neglected to do this, or felt you'd rather devote most of your resources to creating the perfect "star quarterback" robot, then..........................
2. You are part of a three-member team when you're out there on the playing field. So you're the star quarterback who can score at will, huh? Well that amounts to a hill of beans if you have no offensive line who can block for you and give you time to put your amazing talents to good use. Strategize ahead of the match - if you are truly that gifted offensively, one of your teammates should be more than willing to run interference (I think that's the FIRST-chic way of saying "blocking") for you while you put on a show for the crowd. If you don't work together as a team, and you leave your star quarterback exposed, he deserves to get sacked repeatedly, and the crowd will have no pity for you whatsoever. I'm a Browns fan; believe me, I know. However, if you do take care of business and let your star work his magic, the crowd will love you and be excited and entertained all at once.
If we can find a way to merge "technically interesting" with "spectatorily interesting", then we'll have a winner. Based upon what I've read in this thread and seen during the regionals, I've modified my defensive viewpoint a bit. On the defensive side of things, if you are ever on an alliance who's hopelessly outgunned on stacking ability, I think a great way to give yourself a chance at victory is a combination of pestering the opponent's best robot (rushing the quarterback) and using what capping capability you have to eliminate their tic-tac-toe rows (playing deep in the secondary and picking them off) and creating rows of your own (taking it to da hiz-ouse for da score). I think this represents a strong compromise between *defensive* defense and *offensive* defense. The only question that remains is assigning your robot resources to fit the styles - 2 rushers and 1 row interceptor/creator, or vice versa? This mixed style of play yields the best chance at delivering an exciting game that can be won by either team on the field.
I am of the opinion that six-robot defensive slugfests should never occur. I am also of the opinion that six-robot zero-contact stacking contests are BORING and should be avoided. The only exception, I think, would be in the rare instances where you have two evenly-matched uber-offensive alliances pitted against each other. Then go to town - cap away, steal those rows, see how high the stacks and the scores can go - only then would an all-offensive battle be worth watching. But these teams gotta be careful - it just takes one robot on those alliances to cross that field and start mixing things up to topple this delicate tetra ballet and turn the match into the balanced mix of gritty offense and hard-nosed defense that's almost guaranteed to excite the crowd!