[Rich Kressly]

Any robot in any configuration can be used in the "wrong" way. It's a difficult thing to do, but you need to walk a mile in another team's shoes before deciding a particular design is always bad. Teams like 111, who have proven track records, get a lot of "attention" from opposing robots on the field. Designing ways to deflect force away from the robot so it can still move around and perform tasks is smart in my estimation. This is vastly different than a robot designed only as a wedge (that can perform no other offensive task) or a team that uses sloped sides to "attack" another robot.

I'm not concerned with too many flipped robots at all. This is the third straight year I've seen a significant amount of bots with sloped sides and each year I've seen fewer flipped robots than the year before. In 2003, with that ramp on the field, seeing capsized robots (even in autonomous) was much more common than what I saw this year. I've also seen teams that have been able to use arms/appendages to get back up after falling over. Some of these occurances have been some of the most exciting matches I've seen.