Predictions Week 4: Bash Fests in Boston, San Diego & Waterloo. Big Scores @ Buckeye

[Joe Johnson]

Originally Posted by dlavery

Can we PLEASE put this certain little urban myth to rest? Yes, the Rhode Warriors had a very effective robot flipper on their 1997 robot. But so did a lot of other machines (Team 118's wicked little corner flippers come to mind as well). Flippers were not a unique feature to this one team. And I can say with absolute certainty that the "no tipping" rule that started in 1998 was NOT directed at just this one team. It was a response to the feedback from many teams about having their 6-weeks-worth-of-sweat-and-tears-labor-of-love flipped over in the first 15 seconds of the match by any of a number of robots that developed a strategy of taking out the competition to clear the field and then score.

<snip>

-dave

Okay okay, I will concede that I made too strong a statement by using the term "direct result" But I stand by the statement, in general and I totally reject the label of "little urban myth" in this case.

Yes, there were other teams that had flippers BUT Team 121 that had one of the best flippers if not THE best and they had drivers that were very effective at using it. Even more, they were clearly the most famous team employing the strategy. Other teams (myself included) dreaded the day that we might come up against them. It was a legal strategy and but we lived in fear of it.

While the Game Design Committee may not have made the rule directly in response to this one team, clearly the success that the Rhode Warriors had in using this strategy generated the atmosphere where the GDC had to fish or cut bait. In fact, I recall posts on this very forum where I put it plainly: If this is how the game is going to be played, fine, let's just wait and see the havoc that will be unleashed when Bill, Joe, Raul* and the rest of the great engineers in FIRST shift their focus from playing the game to designing the best flippers in 1998.

The GDC wisely made a rule against intentional flippers in 1998 and the rest is history. Perhaps they would have even without Team #121's excellent robot, strategy & tactics in 1997, but I doubt it.

Joe J.

*Bill is Bill Beatty, Joe is yours truly, and Raul is Raul-the-Magnificent Olivera, though he would not acquire his title of "the Magnificent" until The Rumble at the Rock 1999.

How Raul became The Magnificent. A True Story by Joe J.
Raul was just Raul until 1999, the year with Floppies and the year that alliances became a part of FIRST** In order to get maximum points, the floppy game required robots to be on the puck and to raise floppies high in the air at the end of the match.

Motorola Wildstang's motto that year was "We can go higher... ...no, really! We can go higher." (which was a reference to Wildstang's claim that their 1998 Robot could score over any robot and had never yet been forced to raise to its full height).

At the 1998 Rumble at the Rock, Wildstang had made it to the Elimination Rounds. In the first match of the finals or semifinals (I can't recall), Team #111 was on the puck and had raised high when they fell off the puck like an old growth redwood. Their robot hit the ground in a mass of rubble. It was obvious that they were not coming out for their next match. But Raul had other ideas. To the entire crowd's delight, Raul and his crew managed to put Humpty Dumpty back together again before their Timeout had expired. Overcome with emotion, I jumped down onto the field and kissed Raul full on the face! He was shocked by my audacity. I was shocked by his 5 O'clock Shadow -- that stubble is SHARP ;-)

I christened him Raul-the-Magnificent from that day forth. And so he remains to this day.

JJ

**a direct result (and I use the term advisedly) of some skulduggery involving Chief Delphi's second loss in the double elimination tournament at the Nationals in 1998... ...but I digress, back to Raul-the-not-quite-yet-magnificent.