CALIFORNIA?

Sac was a great regional. What it came down to was three capers can outscore two capers and a defender bot, unless the defender bot is 100% effective. The difference in score is dramatic, because if your alliance caps six times , but your opponents cap 8 - They may end up controlling 4 more rows than you. So based just on tetra points there is something like 21 to 25, but on final score the result is 75 to 21.

And I don't care how good your defense bot is, it can't stop two robots from
scoring. It might stop one, but not the other from hitting the center goal, and if it is successful defending the center, it is leaving another goal open for uncontested capping. In that finals every goal was capped at least once, most twice, a couple had three! So the only successful defense is to with gracious professionalism push one of your opponents over or completely disable them. I don't know about you, but I would never try to play the game this way. (someone who did was DQ'd and lost the match and the round.) Still the Quarter-Finals of elimination was the closest thing to Battle Bots I ever saw at a FIRST event.

[whakojacko]

well yes, but 610 did a great job 1st game of your quarters stopping both you and 1097. Didnt work so well later on though when oyu get a good strategy. In qualifiers, we had lots of trouble with bots messing up our capping. However we figured a way around it through good strategy. A pusher CAN work, but id rather have another capper

[jgannon]

Originally Posted by Dr.Bot

So the only successful defense is to with gracious professionalism push one of your opponents over or completely disable them. I don't know about you, but I would never try to play the game this way. (someone who did was DQ'd and lost the match and the round.) Still the Quarter-Finals of elimination was the closest thing to Battle Bots I ever saw at a FIRST event.

I know the match you're talking about, and it was indeed the most vicious match I've seen in competition. One robot managed to tip over two of the opposing robots, and was going for the third. The first two looked okay from the stands, because the contact point between the robots was relatively low. When this robot went for the third, though, they had their arm pushing firmly against the upper joint of the opposing robot's arm, which is not allowed. I think that the first two attacks were relatively GP, and would have been an acceptable strategy, but the third one merited the disqualification.

[steven114]

Originally Posted by Dr.Bot

And I don't care how good your defense bot is, it can't stop two robots from
scoring. It might stop one, but not the other from hitting the center goal, and if it is successful defending the center, it is leaving another goal open for uncontested capping. In that finals every goal was capped at least once, most twice, a couple had three! So the only successful defense is to with gracious professionalism push one of your opponents over or completely disable them. I don't know about you, but I would never try to play the game this way. (someone who did was DQ'd and lost the match and the round.) Still the Quarter-Finals of elimination was the closest thing to Battle Bots I ever saw at a FIRST event.

Actually, many of the team 114ers agree with you - we don't much like the defensive aspect of the game. However, after being asked by the field teams of both the Poofs and the Jesuits to play defense for the extent of the elimination tournament, we went with that and tried our best to keep the others out of the way. Unfortunately, even with our maneuverability (swivel drive) we couldn't keep all three cappers down. Probably a somewhat flawed strategy - but who knows, maybe the three of us can give it another run with a few changes at San Jose!

I'd like to thank both Site 3 and the Poofs for picking us! We had a great time playing with you guys, and it sure was a pickup after we had such slanted qualifying pairings!

And, congrats to the alliance that beat us - you guys played an awesome game! I think it was a bit closer than the scores showed - a few key tetras were holding a bunch of rows for you guys - but I think that the final rounds were some of the only ones where I could say that I felt that all the teams played well and that there weren't any gross miscalls by the referees.


See everyone at San Jose!

[blue_crew]

yeah what is it with those slanted qualifying pairings???
i wish FIRST had a better ranking system which reflected more your own robots capabilities. this would be more beneficial in the alliance team selections because i think many teams are not picked because they have a low ranking when really they are actually a lot stronger then many robots ranked higher.
we felt that way this year and i am sure other teams did too.
i guess any "individual" would be difficult to score though.
what are your thoughts???

[eugenebrooks]

Originally Posted by Dr.Bot

So the only successful defense is to with gracious professionalism push one of your opponents over or completely disable them. I don't know about you, but I would never try to play the game this way. (someone who did was DQ'd and lost the match and the round.) Still the Quarter-Finals of elimination was the closest thing to Battle Bots I ever saw at a FIRST event.

I don't see how you push a robot over, or break its wheels off, with GP,
but then I take your statement in the spirit it was intended...
I second the "battle bots" statement. The entire regional had a strong
flavor of this. We lost many wheel axles to high speed impacts, most
if not all of which were clearly done with the intent of disablement. One
student came over to our team nursing two broken axles after one match
and indicated that he took the several more hits at the third axle
because we were still moving and able to cap a goal... A push
without a high speed impact is certainly an allowable defense strategy,
but when the push fails to move the robot backing up for a high speed
impact to take a wheel off is not allowable in the 2005 rules and is a
bankrupt strategy in any event. Pulling robots over by entangling arms
is specifically against the rules. Any team that repeatedly does this sort
of thing will get an indelible, and well deserved, reputation for it.

We put fenders on our robot after running to the situation
with broken wheel axles, but some robots are configured to hit wheels
just an inch or two from the carpet. To build fenders to defend against
this you have to sacrifice ground clearance required to get over the
tubing used in the goals. Are we supposed to design robots with flip
out porcupine spikes? It would look good really impressive in battle bots...
I think that any team that thinks robot disablement is a viable strategy
is forgetting their GP, and they need to take a serious look at themselves.

We learned a lot about building a robot that is resistant to malicious
destruction at the Sac regional, and will benefit from the experience,
but it certainly left a bad taste. We hope that the teams that pursued
a destructive strategy, and got themselves and their allianced DQed out
of the finals, have also learned from their experience... It would be nice
if the FIRST rules for robot construction were adjusted so that contact
points between robots were regulated, so that pushing and shoving can
occur without attendant destruction and turnovers.