[archiver]

Posted by Lewis Sussman at 03/20/2001 10:43 AM EST


Coach on team #95, Lebanon Robotics Team, from Lebanon NH HS, Hanover NH HS, Hartford VT HS and CRREL/CREARE.


In Reply to: Bridge Coming off the Fulcrum ...
Posted by Roly Anderson on 03/20/2001 8:55 AM EST:



I agree. I doubt that Woodie/Dean et.al. planned the game to be played with a dislocated bridge. If other parts of the playing field are not in accordance with the original specs the referees do something about it. For example if a goal is broken, which I saw several times at the J&J regional, it is replaced. Granted, this happens at the end of the match but the intent is that the game should be played with a functioning goal. Suppose in last year's game the bar collapsed while robots were hanging? Would that have been considered to be an acceptible part of the game? My feeling is that a bridge that is frequently dislocated is "broken," improperly designed and not a fully functional bridge and should be fixed or replaced. Teams that spend all the time, money and effort to build a robot to play the game the way it was presented to us at kickoff shouldn't have to deal with wide variations in the way the playing field functions. We played in a match in which the bridge was off the fulcrum and tried to push it down with no success, lifting our bot up instead of pushing the bridge down. This definitely affected the outcome of the match. I can't imagine that with all of the engineering talent available to FIRST that they couldn't come up with an easy fix here. They should consider this a challenge from the first community. The gauntlet has been thrown!!