Quote:
|
...The second five minutes of each Practice Round will be conducted as a “match” with approximately two minutes for set up, two minutes and fifteen seconds of regular game play...
|
The rule clearly states that regular game play is allowed, and expected, for the second five minutes of each mach. And as for all you folks who think defensive bot have been practicing for 3 weeks? wrong. We were forced to change our design last-minute, and now will have a functional side goal delivery system as well as a very strong defensive bot - what this means is that we have work to do on thursday, and will probably make most of our practice matches - we plan on primarily practicing driving, ball collection, etc... But we would be FOOLS to not practice realistic defensive driving at least once or twice; the practice round is to work out the kinks in systems, and to test, as the rule quoted in the post above my says, "System Robustness". Sure, we dont want to eliminate all of your practice time by tipping you or getting you stuck on the ramp, but dont $@#$@#$@#$@#$@# if we push you around a bit- that our strategy and our system and it deserves just as much testing in our practice rounds as your shooters deserve in yours. I mean, come on folks, just because you had the resources, time, knowledge or what-have-you to build a "fancier" robot does not mean that we robots with a focus on defense should be forced to effectively forfeit our practice opportunities; there WILL be goals at the regionals, off to the side of the Pits like there are every year; if you need more time to calibrate your camera, feel free to use them!
I plan, if I am driving, to practice defense in the practice rounds within reasonable limits; I will, of course, be sure to avoid damaging other robots. If someone asks me not to hit them because they are calibrating a system, I'm fine with that.
But I dont need to and probably WONT (barring contrary instruction from a coach/mentor/the rest of the team) loose my entire practice round and just practice basic driving because everyone wants to line up in front of their goal and shoot for 2 minutes. Expect defense to be played - we ALL need to test our bots, not just the shooters. Expect me to give you time to calibrate, maybe even leave you alone for the entire two 40 second periods, but when the free for all comes, I'm testing my defense.
Good luck all,
Dillon Compton