This is a brutal game.

[prettycolors91]

Our ball shooter ended up not working, so we ended up as a purely defensive robot by the end of GLR. Our alliance partners were awesome, but they couldn't play very good defense. The only reason we did so good is because of our bumpers (Made out of pool floatys ) and really good traction. Defense is a huge part of the game that it seems like not a lot of teams thought about...I know we didn't really in particular think about it at the beginning of build season because "everybody was going to do it"

[Murf the Smurf]

At the St.Louis copitition there was alot of raming and even more tiping. Some teams including us had progamed atamnimus modes to push other bots out of scoring position if everyone was this rugh in atanimus imagine how rough it got during the controled periods. In the finals one teams statigy was not to score but to keep everyone else from scoring. this turnd out to be very effective. in one match they tipped all of the opposing robots and then scored very few points to win. no penaltys for raming were called to my knowlage but they wer inforcing the 3in rule in the side goals and the ofsides rule.

[techtiger1]

Definitely a brutal game. I mean 1251 was beat up at Florida regional as well as many other robots. Actually, our whole chassis bent. All in all though I think it's all good game play I mean as long as the calls are consistent from the refs you can't complain. Besides everyone knows it's tough to shoot when your getting hit around. This is why the autonomous is critical this year.

my two cents,
Drew

[camtunkpa]

This may be a brutal game, but defense is a part of life. I like the fact that there are specific defensive periods. Yes teams do push, yes teams do hit hard, but FIRST gave you an extra 15lbs for bumpers. As far as tipping goes, all the tips I have seen have been completely legal and most of them were not even because of a defender. There have been no wedges or flipping arms. Sure teams tip over, but instead of complaining about how brutal the game is maybe they could have spent more time on making the COG much lower. I love this game for its defensive aspect and how defense is in "controlled" periods. My team is not a defensive robot, we take hits and sure it's frustrating on the field sometimes, but I guarantee it's just as frustrating if not more frustrating being a defensive machine. Believe me this game is not anywhere near games of the past. Life is not easy and neither is FIRST, so make the best with what you have and don't condemn others for doing the best with what they have!

[meaubry]

This thread asks a question that is very clear - everyone can respond with their feelings about "if the game is brutal" - lets stay on topic and not slide into discussions rationalizing your stance on defense or condemning others with different opinions about defense. Sandrag didn't ask -Is this game brutal because of defense - defense in and of itself may not make the game brutal - its how the "defense" is applied.

[Marc P.]

I think the game this year is the result of the long debate of an offensive game vs. a defensive game. With clearly defined periods of offense and defense for each alliance, there's no question about whether defense or offense is dominant in this year's game- it's a balanced combination of each, and each type of play has the opportunity to win. Arguably, 2004 and 2005 were primarily offensive games- as we saw in the finals at the Championship event in Atlanta. The best ball and tetra manipulators took home gold. Going back further, 2002 and 2003 were primarily defensive games- strong drive trains and defensive strategy dominated. This was more as a side effect of how the games were designed- in 2002, the playing field was completely clear, with the 3 heavy mobile goals and set scoring zones. Pushing, shoving, pulling, tug-of-war type robots dominated- as each goal and associated soccer balls were only worth points when held in a certain zone. In 2003, teams quickly figured out it was easier to knock stacks of bins over than spend time trying to stack up themselves, and matches often came down to who was on the ramp at the end. In 2004, the gears changed a bit, with more emphasis on scoring (putting balls in goals, capping with 2x ball, hanging), than descoring (knocking over stacks, shoving bins to the other side of the field). 2005 was the same way- once a tetra was scored, it stayed scored. If an opposing robot knocked a tetra off, it was put back on by the referees, and automatically owned by the scoring alliance.

This year the game seems to be a clear cut mix of both capabilities, and promises to keep people guessing who will win up until the finals. During the New Jersey regional, I saw the dominating power of a primarily offensive alliance as 25 (one of the best shooters I've seen this season), 103, and 1279 broke through the defensive maneuvers of 375, 486, and 1860 to win the event. At the New England regional, I saw 177, 176, and 1124 make awesome use of defensive strategy to knock the strong offensive alliance of 126, 20, and 571 out in a 3 match semi-final series.

Whether or not the game is brutal will vary from regional to regional. Defense is integrated into the game, so there's no question there will be pushing and shoving. If a team wants to be excessive with the force applied to other robots, that's a drive team decision. The hope is that won't happen, and if it does, the referees will catch it. Contact is built into the game- how much is necessary will vary on a team by team basis. Brutality doesn't come from the game, but from the players playing it.

I can't wait to see what the regionals in coming weeks will bring, and the effect of observing strategy at all the regionals combined at the Championship.

[Mr. Van]

As a respected FIRSTer said before the 2003 season...

Originally Posted by sanddrag

A caution from team 696 to everyone attending:
Build'em tough people.

I think with the game (defensive periods) and the field (30 degree ramp) I would say that the game is "unforgiving".

Sandrag - I hope everything is repaired and look forward to seeing 696 in So. Cal.!

-Mr. Van
Coach, 599

[petek]

I saw two very distinctly different kinds of competition at NJ and Pittsburgh. That difference I think can be attributed to the robot types and capabilities.

In NJ we had a number of very effective ball shooters and a few good ball dumpers. Many of these had quite manuverable and/or powerful drive systems and good balance. These qualities made it more difficult for defenders to effectively counter them. Granted, it was an alliance of some of the best, but the offense-oriented winning alliance was able to keep their more defense-oriented opponents running throughout their matches. 25's great drive system made it difficult for a defender to prevent them from getting balls from their human player or push them off target when shooting. 103's accuracy at long range and agile chassis let them avoid or roll off defenders, and while the defenders were focusing on those two high-profile teams, 1279 would slip in and fire off 5 balls into the goal up close. Besides that alliance, the number of effective scoring robots present in NJ probably tilted the balance away from brutal defense.

The story was quite the opposite in Pittsburgh. There, it seemed like 1038 and 365 were the most effective 3 pt shooters, and there were a few others which could score sometimes. 393 & 395 were very effective in the corner goals. Both 1038 & 365 were prone to tipping, which made them more easily defended. Since a larger percentage of teams there were trying to score in the corner goals, there was a lot more robot interaction. Also, several teams in Pittsburgh were purely defensive, and a few were warned or penalized for over-aggressiveness. One robot (393?) managed to move the end of the field back over an inch going for the corner goal at high-speed (I was impressed), and several crashed loudly into the side rails during autonomous. All in all, it was a very defense-oriented event.

I'm looking forward to Chesapeake and Philly to see what happens when some of the best offensive robots meet some of the best defensive ones. A shame 25 won't be at either event; I'd like to see what would happen when they meet a really good defender.

[tbush503]

This game is Brutal.

In the first match of the quarterfinals at UTC, our robot was rammed really hard in autonomous mode and was somehow knocked out for the second period. We were able to get it running again for the rest of the match, but for some reason, it wasn't shooting right. It wasn't until after we lost the quarterfinals that we learned that that robot had rammed us so hard that our camera lens was dislodged from the camera and was unable to focus. We had programmed our camera to automatically adjust the tilt of the shooter. Our robot was shooting low and was unable to score at all.

[Dominicano0519]

If a team rams you in autonomus and totals your scoring mechanism


then you fix it

and the same team does the same thing in autonomus and breaks it again should that count as an intentional malignant ram

[KenWittlief]

Originally Posted by Dominicano0519

If a team rams you in autonomus and totals your scoring mechanism


then you fix it

and the same team does the same thing in autonomus and breaks it again should that count as an intentional malignant ram

it depends. If your scoring mechanism is in the bumper zone, then its up to you to protect it - even if it means you have to face your robot into the railing during auton mode.

[jagman2882]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

Most definitely this is the roughest FIRST games ever

i dunno, 2003 Stack Attack was VERY physical at the top of the ramp, that game was a blast from a drivers standpoint

[JVGazeley]

I saw a battery knocked physically out of a Robot and the Brazilian team seemed to have large cracks in their plastic at NYC.

Our robot got so battered that there was perhaps only two screws holding on the entire right hand cover of our robot by the end, with a substantial amount of Cable ties on the robot. It didn't stop us from being defensive in Autonomous though, charging towards the far goal to block an opponent from scoring, with the 'occassional' contact resulting from it...

Mind you, some teams are getting disciplined as our opponents were disqualified in the second heat of our semi-final for something along the lines of excessive ramming at high speed so I'm told for their actions against 694's robot Joshua. If it weren't for that decision, they would have been in the final instead of us... we won the tie-breaker by 2 points.

[Steve Kaneb]

I love this contact-oriented type of game. We had to design and build a robot that was able to stand up to the rigors of the game, and I like nothing better than watching our robot come out working and on top after a great defensive match.
One of the best things to happen to us this competition was match 31 at the Florida Regional. During our autonomous mode, 108 (a nice robot, I tell you) went defensive and hit us, moving us about 6 inches sideways. The turret auto-aimed and we shot 5 of 6 in. A great part of that match was the pushing matches we had with 108 and others. Nothing over the top, everything for a purpose. The best thing to come out of that match was all 6 robots coming off working just fine.
Overall, I like the defensive struggles, because it brings in especially how good your driver is, and improves every part of the drive crew. Our driver got progressively better during our two regionals, mostly because of the interaction on defense.
Our robot ended up being made mostly of lexan, and I could not be happier with the results. No part of our frame has broken due to contact with another robot, and if we had made it out of aluminum, our frame would look nothing like it did when we shipped.
I also love defensive struggles because the respect you gain for a team when you have to really work around them. At the Florida comp, we were in a match against 180 and 233. 233 could push us around without too much trouble, and those two robots were up there among the best shooters at the competition. I believe that match in particular opened my eyes to how much our first year driver has improved, as he only allowed one ball from their collective alliance to be scored in the center goal during their offensive period. We lost that match, but I believe that our good defensive showing shot us up many alliance pickers' sheets.
I cannot express enough how much I love to see a brutal match end with all 6 robots working. There's nothing better, for me as a purist, to see a game end with a vast majority of the points being scored in autonomous and on the ramp.