[David]

My team has been involved in First for 3 years. The last 2 years we had a robot that could push other bots out of the way and play good defense. We did fairly well (2005 we lost to the eventual nation champions in divisional semis) but we found that a highly maneuverable bot could evade us and a strong defense never won more matches than strong offense. In 2005 there was no pinning rule so every match we would score a few and pin the best opponent so he couldn't score. The only problem was we played one team (i think it was the cybersonics) and they would just roll off of us every time we pushed them. This year we made a fast agile bot, but used shifting transmissions and custom traction wheels so we should be able to win most pushing matches. I do agree that some teams are ridiculous (one team had 8 motors) but two motor drive trains are acceptable. First should not restrict energy usage because, overtime, the better style of drive train should be more common. It is not First's job to tell teams how to build their bots and what motors to use.