[archiver]

Posted by Joe Johnson at 1/10/2001 10:31 PM EST


Engineer on team #47, Chief Delphi, from Pontiac Central High School and Delphi Automotive Systems.


In Reply to: Well said
Posted by Andy Baker on 1/10/2001 9:50 PM EST:



I am slowly coming to believe that all the folks who
are worried about a boring finals are wrong.

I admit that I was worried, but I am not any longer.

My reasoning springs from 2 thoughts.

First, today we had our team break up into 4 teams,
each "designed" a robot and we all played the game with
those robots (or rather simulated playing the game).

The curious thing was that we kept coming up with ways
of scoring more points, each with progressively more
risk, but with a higher reward.

I believe that this will lead to an EXTREMELY exciting
finals because
the alliances are going to be taking more and more risk in
their efforts to try to out do the other alliance.

Second, TIME is a very important twist. The fact that
teams that can shave off a few seconds get rewarded
will put a very high pressure on the drivers and robots.

I am slowly coming to weave a picture in my head of
these two factors combining to make a very exciting
finals. Teams will be taking more risks to get more
reward and trying to do it in faster times.

I am coming to the opinion that this,
together with the teeter totter, will make for
a lot of action AND uncertainty in the finals.

Action and uncertainty are the two main elements of the
excitement of sports.

Fasten your seatbelts, we are in for a bumpy ride!

Joe J.

P.S. The deeper we get into this game, the more clever
Dean and Woodie seem. The balances are very finely
tuned (no pun intended).

As an engineering challenge,
I don't think we have met this games equal as an
exercise in running around in circles...

...maybe this
is the right way, no, maybe it's that way, or is it
this third way over there, oh yeah, let's not forget
about that other possibility over under the
carpet.

By accident or design, it is well done.