[mathking]

I have to agree with Paul. At Buckeye there were a number of teams with who had robots that could not gather balls, but they drove their robot well and had good human players. One of them (2387) was ranked in the top 8 most of the way and advanced into the elimination rounds. 2941 had a really nicely balanced, maneuverable machine and played great offensive-defensive driving, pinning other robots and impeding their ball collection. We won a match with them when they kept a robot down in our PS's corner for about 13 or 14 shots. The good human players were able to score at least as much as the good robots. It really made things balanced this year. The great robots couldn't just roll over opponents with technical superiority. Without a good strategy and good human player they were vulnerable to defeat.

The strategy was really important. We noticed this by analyzing our mistakes in the early rounds. There were plenty of matches in which our only goal with the robot was to keep moving and gobble up balls to keep them from opponents. You really have to pay attention to not getting stuck in bad spots.