Cheesecake: How far is too far?

[Rachel Lim]

I guess I should have said that in 2014, I didn't see cheesecaking define the game or the strategy the way I've seen it happen in 2015. I don't think modifying robots to make them more competitive, either in quals or elims, was the major issue this year. I believe (from what I've heard) that it was that those teams were basically just their cheesecake, so being an easy platter was more desirable than trying to contribute individually. Then again, it could have just simply been that I had nothing else to compare 2014 to until this year.

It seems that we needed Recycle Rush to really figure out just how large a role cheesecaking can play.
It seems that we needed the modified response to Q461 to figure out that maybe the original response had its advantages.

I still believe that if we replayed Recycle Rush with the original Q461 response (or something similar), teams would find a way around it because cheesecaking would still be necessary. There would be some other debate about this. I also believe that if we replayed another game where it wasn't as necessary, we would see it, but it wouldn't be as defining a factor.


This has been an interesting discussion, and one I've definitely learned from. If I was to rewrite my first post, it'd probably be:

Design a game that requires cheesecaking to win, put some rules in to try and prevent it, and it will still happen.
Design a game that doesn't require cheesecaking to win, put some rules in to try and prevent it, and it won't happen much.
Cheesecaking here used to refer to the need to put an entire mechanism on to win or something to that extent, not to smaller modifications

Rules define how far a strategy can be taken, but the game defines what strategy is needed.