[Steve Kaneb]

I love this contact-oriented type of game. We had to design and build a robot that was able to stand up to the rigors of the game, and I like nothing better than watching our robot come out working and on top after a great defensive match.
One of the best things to happen to us this competition was match 31 at the Florida Regional. During our autonomous mode, 108 (a nice robot, I tell you) went defensive and hit us, moving us about 6 inches sideways. The turret auto-aimed and we shot 5 of 6 in. A great part of that match was the pushing matches we had with 108 and others. Nothing over the top, everything for a purpose. The best thing to come out of that match was all 6 robots coming off working just fine.
Overall, I like the defensive struggles, because it brings in especially how good your driver is, and improves every part of the drive crew. Our driver got progressively better during our two regionals, mostly because of the interaction on defense.
Our robot ended up being made mostly of lexan, and I could not be happier with the results. No part of our frame has broken due to contact with another robot, and if we had made it out of aluminum, our frame would look nothing like it did when we shipped.
I also love defensive struggles because the respect you gain for a team when you have to really work around them. At the Florida comp, we were in a match against 180 and 233. 233 could push us around without too much trouble, and those two robots were up there among the best shooters at the competition. I believe that match in particular opened my eyes to how much our first year driver has improved, as he only allowed one ball from their collective alliance to be scored in the center goal during their offensive period. We lost that match, but I believe that our good defensive showing shot us up many alliance pickers' sheets.
I cannot express enough how much I love to see a brutal match end with all 6 robots working. There's nothing better, for me as a purist, to see a game end with a vast majority of the points being scored in autonomous and on the ramp.