Playing Dirty

[Adams High Man]

"
pla·ce·bo
n. pl. pla·ce·bos or pla·ce·boes

A substance containing no medication and prescribed or given to reinforce a patient's expectation to get well.
An inactive substance or preparation used as a control in an experiment or test to determine the effectiveness of a medicinal drug.
"

The Placebo robot didnt seem too inactive when it rammed and crippled us. It wasnt inactive when it pinned us half the match.

When the Placebo switched drivers, and ranged from dirty-aggressive to passivly-resistant, it didnt seem to be a "control".

When our teammate showed up, their robot didnt work and we lost the match. When our opponent's teammate didnt show up, they got a working robot that rammed, pinned, and pushed us to death.

almost all of our matches, we were against that "Placebo". OTC, who's branch BUILT the Placebo, went against them once.


The rules of OCCRA have always been there to make everything fair. A dirty-aggressive FUNCTIONAL robot, put into a game only when a team was not there (not if their robot couldnt move), that rams, pins, and who's drivers are biased towards certain teams, is not fair.

A fair Placebo would be one that is what its name says: an inactive substance. Why didnt the team's robot show up? because it did not work! if they DID show up, there would be a motionless robot on the field. The Placebo should be just like that. A motionless hunk of material. It should not be allowed to ram, pin, and be dirty like it did.

To make future competitions FAIR, the placebo should either be replaced with a motionless box with a spinning light inside, or be taken out alltogether.