National Competition Reactions & Opinions

[archiver]

Posted by Chris, Student on team #230, MAD, from Shelton High School and Sikorsky.

Posted on 4/26/99 11:36 PM MST


In Reply to: Re: i'd agree with daniel (oh wait, that's me) posted by Daniel on 4/26/99 7:32 PM MST:



While the alliance idea did force teams to come up with several strategy
plans, it also left teams vulnerable. For example, my team used the concept
of beaching ourselves on the puck, which wasn't a very good system because
it left us exposed and open to any team who could push us off the puck.
Because the wasn't a very good system, we often agreed to gather floppies,
while our ally took the puck. This plan worked very well in the regionals,
but not in the nationals. Many times our allies would not perform as
expected, or have mechanical difficulty and leave us holding the floppies
while the puck was getting pushed and mounted by another team. This also
happened to us once, when our arm suddenly stopped working.

Even though the ally system was random, I still think that there should be
a different way to choose them. Many times the teams were to top ranked
teams against two low ranked ones, making the poor poorer and the rich richer.
Instead of this, I thought that the top team should be paired with the
bottom-most team, and the second highest with the second lowest for each match.
I dunno, just a thought. Chris