2015 Lessons Learned: The Negative

[EricAnderson191]

Originally Posted by Jared Russell

• Without W-L-T or any form of (non-canburglar, non-noodle throwing) defense, outgunned teams have nothing to cheer for but for their competitors to mess up. I will never forget how it felt to look up and see several thousand people and dozens of teams standing and cheering when our alliance knocked over a couple stacks en route to our quarterfinal exit. I do not blame them (and take the cheering as a gesture of respect for our robot), but it was a little hard to swallow and to explain to our students. I wish the incentives did not align this way.
  

Many people had 254 making it to the finals and I was shocked to hear that the team did not make it out of their division. I checked in with your team later in the day and they said that could go wrong did. This has to be especially galling after so many matches played at a high level.

Perhaps something to add to planning and practice for a similar game is to predict what happens when disaster strikes and how to recover from it.

Eric