900's Championship Cheesecaking Chronicles

[Sam Slade]

First off, I want to preference my post by congratulating ALL 4 of the championship winners. It was a great strategy and well within the rules. I have no issues with the strategy.

I understand and support finding ways for any team to contribute more to an alliance. At the Southfield District in Michigan this year, a team took a cardboard trash bin from the event and taped it to their robot for the elimination matches. During the match, they loaded their alliance's remaining noodles in it and drove to the landfill to score points. No one cried "Foul" there, nor should they have. Teams then expanded to sharing can burglars and ramps, again with no one crying "Foul" (that I can remember anyways).

The strategy that this alliance came up with was brilliant. It sounds like it was an amazing experience for all involved. They didn't break any rules, no one was bullied into doing anything, they simply came up with a strategy to try to win.

I am, however, a little concerned with what "cheesecaking" may become. Are we going to continue down this path to the point at which a team simply builds three robots and slaps their partners' numbers on them for the match?Again, I am not accusing anyone of doing anything wrong. I am simply wondering what the future holds.

Again congratulations to ALL 4 of the championship winners. To insinuate that a team does not deserve the championship win as part of the alliance just because they didn't play in a match is absurd. Does a backup quarterback "not deserve" a ring when their team wins a Superbowl? Everyone has their role to fill. That's what makes you a team/alliance.

[smurfgirl]

Originally Posted by Sam Slade

To insinuate that a team does not deserve the championship win as part of the alliance just because they didn't play in a match is absurd. Does a backup quarterback "not deserve" a ring when their team wins a Superbowl? Everyone has their role to fill. That's what makes you a team/alliance.

I think that's a great way to look at it.

[meg]

Originally Posted by Sam Slade

I am, however, a little concerned with what "cheesecaking" may become. Are we going to continue down this path to the point at which a team simply builds three robots and slaps their partners' numbers on them for the match?Again, I am not accusing anyone of doing anything wrong. I am simply wondering what the future holds.

I can't speak for others, but personally I feel that a lot of the "cheasecaking" had to do with the game this year. We knew on day 1 of build season that the matches would (99% of the time) be decided within the first few seconds by who could grab the cans first.

That being said, we also knew that there was absolutely no way that "can burgler" without the ability to then place the cans on stacks would have let us win the regionals we attend. We made the choice to build the robot we would need to (hopefully) succeed at regionals.

That robot was definitely not up to the task at Championships. Not only was it mechanically flakey (we had to replace the output shafts of the motors nearly every match which involved removing the entire arm. Just ask AndyMark how much we abused their products this year!), but we knew it wasn't fast enough.

Even before knowing which field we were going to be on, we had discussed leaving the arm at home and building something new to put on the robot for Championships. It was eventually decided that we should keep the arm, we wanted to see the autonomous with vision we had worked so hard on.

Overall, I think that there are two main benefits that came out of this.
First, our students were inspired, they got to work with some other teams very closely to accomplish a very very impressive engineering feat.
Second, we got to meet and work with 1114, 148 and 1923. We hope that we will have a lasting relationship with them for years to come. As we continue to grow as a team, having these contacts we can ask for advice and as a guide for how we can help improve our team will be invaluable. I can't wait to see them at worlds next year! Also, meeting Libby was awesome! We are super proud to be part of Team Unither and we hope to grow those bonds and be able to work more closely with them in the future!

Sorry for the long ramble-y post