[archiver]

Posted by Jason Morrella at 04/28/2001 11:51 PM EST


Coach on team #254, Cheesy Poofs, from Bellarmine College Prep & others and NASA Ames/Cypress Semiconductor/Unity Care.


In Reply to: No Right-No Wrong
Posted by Bill Beatty on 04/28/2001 12:13 PM EST:



: Before you compromise too far toward some sort of defense allowed format, think about this. Cheesy Poofs had a super capable machine that won two regionals and their division. Would you have been willing to give up one or more of those wins to a box of rocks that hindered your machine's performance? I'll bet not.
: Regards,
: Mr. Bill

Bill,

Actually, that is what I was referring to when I said we (The Cheesy Poofs) have been on both extremes of this discussion. Last year we were fortunate to have almost the same success as this year (won 2 regionals & 5th at Nationals). But last year, while we were a versatile robot in the qualifying rounds, in the playoffs our robot (by design) became the defensive "shut the other alliance best scoring robot down" robot. (as many noticed, the game last year was TWO TOTALLY different games in qualifying & playoffs, and we designed for the game we thought would be played in the playoffs)
I'm kind of in the middle about the "box of bolts that does nothing but block" arguement - because I felt our team was successful in 99 & 2000 at defeating more complex or offensive designed robots because we either had a better strategy or our drivers out drove the other teams. Also, to defend the "defense" side a little - our program was not capable of building the robot we built this year in 99 or 2000. We had much less experience, fewer ideas to build off of, and less support.
By this year, our third year, we finally felt we had the experience and could build a more complex & offensive machine. We analyzed the game, and decided it was the year for us to go for a robot capable of seeding high as oppossed to a good playoff robot which would compliment the top seeds, make a tough alliance, and hopefully get us picked.
But you are right in that we would have scrapped a few of our advancements in our drive system and arms this year if we were worried about hard contact and trying to build a stronger, defensive machine. There are trade offs to any game.

I didn't mean to imply there is a right and wrong, if I did. I think it is a valid discussion with great & valid points to be made by both sides.