Thread: Crazy Idea, looking for comments
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Unread 23-06-2002, 22:56
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#0047 (ChiefDelphi)
  
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Location: Pontiac, MI
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defense---not exactly kicking back...
Posted by Daniel, Student on team #192, Gunn Robotics Team, from Henry M Gunn Senior High School and NASA Ames.

Posted on 5/8/99 2:25 AM MST


In Reply to: Re: Crazy Idea, looking for comments posted by Jacob Etter on 5/7/99 11:31 PM MST:



'...sit back and play defense'?

There are a few things wrong with that sentence.

Defense is hardly sitting back. In fact, if you watch sports, tell me one example of a sport in which there's no defense. It's critical not only for the merit of the game, but also for the entertainment factor. Defense is exciting to watch!

Furthermore, I feel fairness should a secondary goal in this whole FIRST thing. See, FIRST has a mission: it strives to inspire. In my opinion there is nothing more inspiring than watching robots play an intelligent battle that involves not only agility, but wits as well. The game structure this year allowed drivers to incorporate a high level of strategy ranging from offence, to the defense that I so often praise on these forums. TKO was my hero this year. They took the risk of adopting an entirely defensive strategy by taking off their basket permanently. That may not have been ideal, as they were not very flexible in how they could play during the round, but it sure made for some exciting -- inspiring, rather -- matches. That takes guts.

Personally, although occasionally hit by a bad stroke of luck, I felt more attached to this years game than I have been ever before. What the competition encouraged, was to have a robot that could play however it needed to. A robot that could lift ten floppies or hold down a few elevators. A robot that could do it all. Why is that a bad thing?

I know it seems unfair, especially to those who were 'cheated' the most by the system, but boy did it make for some great machines and strategies.

I gotta say, FIRST blew me away this year. That doesn’t mean there’s no room to improve the system, there’s always ways to improve (read some of these other forum messages and you’ll see). Sometimes you can fix a “broken” guitar by tuning it, because it wasn’t really broken after all. Are you sure the process doesn’t just need some tuning?

I don’t know about you, but I was sure inspired this year.


I can't wait to find out about next year's game...
-Daniel
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