Playing Dirty

[Adams High Man]

I am sorry if i am a little "emotional" about this, but in my opinion, the placebo was an unfair advantage. It is true that i was not at the competition, but it is also true that i watched all of the matches on video. The placebo driver was very clearly changing aggression levels between matches. As for the acual bot, it violated a core OCCRA rule.

"
RB1 The object is to build a robot to play the described game using the kit of parts and additional materials listed. The robots for the 2002 OCCRA competition must be built entirely during the period of time starting at Kickoff 2002 and ending at the 2002 county championships: no parts on a robot are allowed if they were fabricated before this time period. The intention is to have the students design and build the robot. Teachers and sponsors may answer questions, give instruction on scientific principles, give instruction in tool usage and safety...etc.: students must do the actual designing and building.
"

The entire placebo robot used was built last year. It therefore had several competitions to tweak its drive system. Also, a teacher/sponsor fixed up the robot for use, which is another violated core OCCRA rule.

Also, the semi-random match selection was invalidated. 3 out of 5 competitions, we were on the field with the placebo. The game leaned away from being about competing with other schools, and more towards competing with the placebo. Other teams, who only were against the placebo once or never, had a more diverse competition. OTC was not matched against Rochester 3 times, for example.

I agree that whats done is done, and that is not the reason why i started this debate. In my view, the placebo created an unfair situation, and i do not want it to happen again at future competitions.