[dtengineering]

While I think it is pretty clear that 1114 was THE dominant robot this season, I was surprised by both their alliance picks. Until I realized that they were choosing based perhaps more on people than on machines. Evidently an effective strategy, but perhaps not the optimal alliance. If one were to remove the constraints of the draft order, I think it may have been possible to form a higher scoring alliance based on the teams within that division.

I would also suggest that the one robot design that could have significantly reduced 1114's effectiveness was not built... or at least not used in this way as far as I know.

There is no rule preventing a team from raising a 5' wide bar to a height of 9' or so, and parking just behind their opponent's finish line. The bar would be arranged so that the ball would bounce off it before it fully crossed the overpass. Since the ball had been shot, and was no longer in contact will the launcher, this would not count as "contact during hurdling", and yet the ball would never fully cross the finish line to count as a hurdle. This would have seriously messed up all the launch bots... even if it only blocked 50% of shots, the psychological effect would have the launchers lining up to aim and drastically reducing their rate of scoring.

Jason