Fierce Competition and Scarce GP

[Jack]

Yeah...

This year does seem to be more agressive than last year. This, i think, is because of that battle-bot idea. FIRST is trying to spread it self which requires it to attract more people. They can attract more people through more conflict in the game.

Face it: And outsider doesn't want to watch a game unless there is some conflict. (Football = People running into each other like crazy) So, FIRST is trying to be two sides at once - Create a game where all teams win & a game with competition that attracts people.

Which one is better, well both and neither. I'd say that the game this year created a lot of new, good challenges for the teams. It also increased the rivalry between the teams.

I guess I really don't have a side on this. I want there to be a unity between the teams, but I also want to see first be spread.

Jack

[ryanspensley]

Originally posted by Matt McNelley
Midwest wasn't quite as lively as St. Louis, but I thought the teams did well in supporting each other during the awards. I also noticed some very intentional robot bashing.... Even some robots chasing others around simply trying to ram them. I didn't see much of this at St. Louis, but St. Louis would disqualify a team for almost any kind of behavior that was considered unsportsman-like (a.k.a. clapping and cheering when you knock a robot over).

I agree, the refs at st louis did say that they would disqualify for unsportsmanship, but its hard not to grin when an opponent tips over.

[Arrowsmith]

I'm sure I clapped during midwest, but I'm not sure how enthusiastic I was because I was bummed about what happened to our team. That saturday morning at alliance choosing time, we were thrilled. Through the powers that be, we wound up tenth. Because of alliance choosings, we were bumped up to be head of the 8th alliance. We chose 201 and 247 as our partners. The disturbing part is that we suffered a motor problem in our last match and our pit crew worked frantically to fix the motor. It still wasn't fixed by our quarterfinal, so we stayed out of the first match. 201 and 247 did well, but we lost 69 to 62, setting us back 130 points. When we came in, disaster occured. When autonamous started, the supposedly fixed motor blew a pin. Because we use tank drive, the robot swerved to the right, and ran into the wall. The wheel went outside the arena, and we were disabled. This deeply bummed me. Sorry about all that, just needed to vent.

[codeoftherobot]

I felt that at the Silicon Valley regional, Dean Kamen was trying to stress that FIRST is not battle bots and that people are beginning to lose the vision of what FIRST was first started as. His tone of voice was as though he was sad at everyone for their misaction and disregard for G. P. Next year the rules are probably going to be a lot stricter upsetting those who thought that by disabling the other robot, they could then win. Being part of a rookie team, I have no previous knowledge of how teams acted in the past. All I know that support for other teams seemed really lacking at the regionals. People were barely supporting eachother (e.g. clapping for others, cheering even if their robot wasn't on the field). To me there was a lack of G. P. and I think teams should reevaluate what is truly important at a regional other than winning by any means necessary.