494........

[Eric Bareiss]

I'm sure that there some legitimacy to the goal grabber being sharp but to me defense is defense. I distinctly remember an intentional tipping call against 121 in the nats playoffs 2003. I didn't hear an apology for that.

If it was my team, I would not have aplogized.

[Kyle Fenton]

While I didn't like 494 destroying my team's front end, there is nothing anybody could do to it. We didn't protect it that much because we thought this years game would be primarily offensive.

However this sets a dangerous statement to future FIRST games. Basically teams will noticed that building a simple strong machine will win the game because they can disable any robot trying to score points. I didn't particularly liked last years game because it turned mostly into a defensive game. Personally I like an offensive game better which leads to a high scoring game.

Defense is still a crucial part of strategy though, and should be used. However it shouldn't be a primary feature.

[Rick]

Originally Posted by Eric Bareiss

I'm sure that there some legitimacy to the goal grabber being sharp but to me defense is defense. I distinctly remember an intentional tipping call against 121 in the nats playoffs 2003. I didn't hear an apology for that.

If it was my team, I would not have aplogized.

Well thats the thing about FIRST. We can go out and have a tough well fought match and still be friends after it. Team 126 and 121 SHARED A PIT at UTC. I know some of thier members by name, and countless others by thier face and the conversations we have had. I'm gonna go on to say Andy Grady is my homeboy.

Enought about that tip. Their are no hard feelings because of last year in curie and their should be no hard feelings towards 494. To not apoligize would be ridiculous and shows that 494 truly did not realize what they had done during the match.

I'm sorry to see some people wanting to see 494 and 121 fight over these boards but it's not going to happen.

[MrToast]

Originally Posted by Ricksta121

Team 126 and 121 SHARED A PIT at UTC. I know some of thier members by name, and countless others by thier face and the conversations we have had. I'm gonna go on to say Andy Grady is my homeboy.
I'm sorry to see some people wanting to see 494 and 121 fight over these boards but it's not going to happen.

Yeah! That was awesome! We had so much more space, and the 126 guys are awesome! Go Gael Force!

I'm going to admit that I was pretty upset over the destruction of the fan and the damage to the electrical system, but I agree with Ricksta (who is my homeboy) that it's a shame that we're trying to fight over this.

It was an accident. 494 did not TRY to destroy Rhode Warrior VI. So let's move on.

[Mike K]

494 had a good robot that was very tough. They played a little rough but the one thing that i am worried about is that team will soon just have a pure steel box that has X motors running a robot that has a X speed trans.

I give them congrats and hope that other teams will build good robots yet not pure destruction machines.

[Bduggan04]

I hope that this changes the quality of the robots. We had a problem last year where a team sent one of their devices into our robot and pulling wires out. As a result we completely enclosed everything with a 1/16" belly pan to protect the interior of the robot. This also made it easier to mount things. Teams that had bad experiences this year should remember them for next year and try to fix them. Unless they do the four team alliance thing again, there will always be defence.

[Pat Major]

I have carefully followed this thread wanting to jump in many times but not wanting to fan any negative flames against our team I held back. In true F.I.R.S.T. fashion this thread has come full circle and it appears that team 121 understands that we do not go out to damage other robots, and when we were told about the damage we removed the goal grabber on our own, officials did not ask us to remove it. Being friends is an important aspect of F.I.R.S.T. I hope that this will lead Jeff, Kyle, Matt, Rick, MrToast, Joe M121, and the rest of your team to become close friends with our team, maybe you can introduce us to team 126 they sound like a great team too. Thanks to all the teams that have supported us publicly and privately through this learning experience.

[Lee]

I was not at the championship but did play with the Martians at Peachtree this year. The goal of an engineer should be to build a machine to accomplish a task and make it tough, easy to repair, modular, etc. I rememeber Woody at my first kickoff encouraging everyone to do one thing and do it well. The Martians certainly did one thing well - they built a robust machine! That should be the primary goal of every team out there. You can't play if you're broken. I only witnessed the Martians playing rough when they were played rough with. Don't try to give out what you can't take. My utmost respect and congratulations for team 494. Everyone else should take note - theirs is a GREAT team. In real life when a machine breaks (no matter what the cause) we ask ourselves: how can we make it better next time?