YMTC: Defensive Strategies

[Meandmyself]

There's definetely a difference between repeated ramming with the intent to deal damage and backing up then moving forward again to avoid the ten second pinning penalty. I would think it would come down to the ref's opinion on what the intent is, whether to destroy or to pin for a few seconds.
Another thing, FIRST is not basketball. Contact is perfectly legal, and using your robot's superior torque to push another robot away from a goal is also perfectly legal. There are some bots who do this well, and there are other bots who are high speed, low torque and all they can do is hope to ram into a bot enough to keep it from scoring. The first type is perfectly valid, the second has no place in Gracious Profesionallism.

[meaubry]

Defense can be played as affectively using placement rather than pushing or ramming. The rules clearly define pinning so everyone knows that you must back off 3 ft - it isn't intended to provide enough space to repeatedly smash into the opponents.
Interaction is expected when remote control mechanism are confined to a closed area and the objective is both offensive (scoring) and defensive (not allowing them to score) depending on the situation, the strategy, and the robots capabilities.
Defense as a strategy is fine and necessary to make a good game. How the defensive strategy is executed is what is in question. Avoid ambiguous terms in definitions, like "intent" - the obvious is obvious, but the less than obvious is left to human judgement. When leaving the interpretation to people, expect differences based on opinions and experiences. What is high speed ramming to one person may not be High speed ramming to another. Rules with measurable boundaries far exceed those without. Out of bounds includes touching the line, Straddling the line means one wheel on either side, 120 lbs can be measured.
I would suggest, during the driver meeting the folks clearly define the acceptable behavior when playing defense, not the resultant action for being penalized.
Make it clear, use examples with the drivers so they can related to it - make sure everyone understands and is provide the opportunity to ask questions for clarification without being embarassed. Each team should be required to send the coach and driver to a seperate quiet room on Thursday to discuss these issues and make sure they understand the rules.
This year more than ever, the alliance partners impact more than the outcome of a single match - they also can impact the seeding of their partners. I would hope that everyone cared enough not to either wreck another teams robot nor mess up their alliance partners of seeding - just because they were trying to show off their ability to defend in hopes of being selected later by a team looking for an enforcer (defense by brute)