Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Lawrence
/snip
Most robots this year don't have a drivetrain designed around pushing, and even if teams changed their drivetrains for this sort of offseason event it would be difficult to knock over stacks inside robots who have designed proper stack holding devices (and that was indeed a part of this year's game, so it's not something new that would need to be added). Combine that with how close the protected zones are to all the totes and how little travel distance is required between tote collecting and scoring and defense knocking over stacks in robots isn't enough of a concern to change anything.
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That would be true, but from what I've seen of 2002 it is extremely hard to protect a stack. Any robot that's not U-shaped would be killed really fast, and most U-shaped bots would probably fall over due to the higher center of gravity. Most robots are far less maneuverable with totes than without, so playing defense would be pitifuly easy; just whack them as they try to get totes and watch the totes not settle properly, then block them as they try to place (this would literally be the role of the third robot on each playoff alliance, and because of the way scoring zones are set up they could block multiple at once). You would have to redesign the rules to protect any bots with totes, and then it's just Recycle Rush Mark II.
We designed to protect totes from themselves, not from others.
All that being said, watching top-tier teams like 254, 118, 1114, etc. all stack up on this field would be amazing, because they all have the necessary stack-inside-frame-perimete design and are all really good.