Quote:
Originally Posted by Rick TYler
It's not our job to fathom the intent of the rules, only to follow them. To drag out some well-worn sports cliches, the football world didn't take to the forward pass right away, and the racing world was stunned when Colin Chapman built rear-engined, lightweight cars to compete with the heavier, front-engined cars of the time. The most famous example is probably in the America's Cup regatta when a New Zealand team challenged Dennis Connor using a "big boat" following the original deed of grant for the America's Cup, despite the fact that the regatta had been conducted with 12-meter sloops since World War II. Connor responded with another tradition-breaking solution by entering a big catamaran. Sailors are still grumbling about the regatta, saying that both the Kiwis and Connor were gaming the system. They weren't -- the were using the rules as written to optimize their chances of winning, just like Chapman and the pioneers of modern football.
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Agreed, those are all great advances in the way the game/race is played within the rules. Operative word is "WITHIN".
Fortunately the football players never tried to use the sidelines as playing surfaces, colin Chapman never tried to 4-wheel it across the infield, and the New Zealand team didn't "Skip" a leg of the race by having a long arm that "crossed" all the checkpoints, as all of these would be fairly clearly against the rules of their particular events.
There is no doubt that 190 has come up with some very complex, inspiring and amazing robot designs over the years. As Ken said, some are not the most competitive designs; I think this is one of them. They are one of the few teams that i really look forward to seeing their robot at the first chance i get. The legality/illegality of this design has been beaten to death by this thread. 190 chose to go this route fully knowing that their design was "on the edge" of legality... And it has been pretty clearly show it is not legal.
Would I have gone down this design path for this years game? No Way.
Can i fault them for trying? Not my place to.
Is it entertaining to watch? Definitely.
Best of luck to 190 and to all teams, See you all in Atlanta!
Tom