A Horrible Idea

[Aignam]

If you dedicated a resourceful team to the task, I'm positive that this robot could easily be made. All that is needed is a strong, fast, robust drivetrain and a quick deployment method. The wings could be made of PVC and the curtain of some light, opaque material.

This robot, however, would not be in the spirit of FIRST and gracious professionalism, so any resourceful team would find a more feasible design.

[RoboCoder]

blocking the shutes - possibly a workable strategy

blocking the views of those behing the drivers station - several things I see wrong with it.

1) you'd get on a LOT of people's bad sodes for it, your opponents and possibly your alliance partners for keeping the scores so low.

2) Gracious professionalism people? Sure you want to win, but if you have to impair the other team's view to do it, then that doesnt seem to be graciously professional at all

3) every year some one comes up with the idea to block the other team's views. While in the past its been the drivers and not the human players (for obvious reasons), the rationale is the same. team member that cant see = against the intent of the rules/game. I think FIRST was trying to avoid putting in rules like that in hopes that most teams would have the insight to realize that you could try to do that any year, blocking the opponents view, and not really be creative or playing the game. It just seems to go against what FIRST stands for IMHO (just my opinion, if you have a different one you're welcome to state it, but dont trounce on me! )

4) You'll be going up against a variety of teams. Theres a decent chance that at LEAST several of the teams in the top 8 were teams you used that strategy against, and they probably wont choose you.


I dunno, I just think its not a very good idea, kinda mean, not a terribly great chance of success, violates the purpose of the game (in my opinion), and would get your team on the bad side of far too many people (other important teams, judges, etc). Do what you wish, and stick with what you feel your best strategy is, but as for me, I dont plan on using this strategy.

(BTW is anyone actually seriously considering using this strategy or are we just having a hypothetical debate?)

[Beth Sweet]

[quote=RoboCoder]blocking the shutes - possibly a workable strategy

2) Gracious professionalism people? Sure you want to win, but if you have to impair the other team's view to do it, then that doesnt seem to be graciously professional at all
QUOTE]

Thank you, this was exactly what I was thinking. I don't know if anyone else heard I believe it was Dean, at kickoff say that there would be a lot about this year's game that would depend on courtesy etc. and I think that this is probably what they were talking about. I'm glad that I'm not the only one who thought of this.

[Tom Bottiglieri]

that be one mad fly idear d00d... u could have like a 20 foot long foldable lexan shield..so they can see what they want to shoot at, but they cant...its like a tease

[generalbrando]

RoboCoder - I think you summed up my view for the most part in that it would be horrible for the other teams and I don't see it as being a real strategy for anyone since it's not very professional at all. I really threw this out here because I was hoping no one was thinking of doing this and I wanted to sorta make sure . If someone really wants to try this and they don't outlaw it - I can't stop you, but you'll have a lot of angry people glaring at you!

[RoboCoder]

heh heh glad to hear that general brando. I figured since you called it a horrible idea that you werent planning on using it, but I wasnt sure if anyone was actually planning on using it, since several people have really gone into the feasibility of the strategy. Its always a good thing to see teams act on gracious professionalism - I know I try to whenever possible, and I always like hearing stories of great stuff happening because of it

For anyone who is actually considering it - dont forget to consider both the on and off-field consequences. I know I've heard of judges not giving an award to a certain team for actious that less clearly go against gracious professionalism. Really, its not the point of the competition anyways, not the nature of the beast if you get my drift. So, in an effort NOT to sound like a broken record (I know that repeating the same things enough times is not necessisarily a good way to reinforce your point), I'll wrap up. Keep up with coming up with creative strategies, just make sure you consider all possible consequences, in PR, game wins/points, and most of all gracious professionalism.