Changing the face of the game..

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Posted by Chris.   [PICTURE: SAME | NEW | HELP]


Coach on team #308, Walled Lake Monster, from Walled Lake Schools and TRW Automotive Electronics.

Posted on 11/10/99 11:57 AM MST


In Reply to: Imaging a modular tank... posted by Joe Johnson on 11/7/99 6:38 PM MST:



One thing that interests me is how this will affect the level of parity between the high budget teams and the low budget teams. My personal opinion is that this might be a compromise in the multi-regional thing. (Then again, maybe not. But hear me out here).

My main example is the host team of this site. I went to the first regional last year (Midwest regional) as an observer. Chief Delphi perfomed okay, but was nowhere near where they wanted to be. I noticed them taking their robot apart between matches as they were not satisfied with performance. A copule regionals later (and hence a couple of 3 day work periods later) they were in the top 8 at the Great Lakes regional.

From a personal standpoint, our team has discussed doing this in the past. We talked about going to multiple regionals as a way to 'buy some extra work time'. In fact, this was the main reason for us considering extra regionals.

Now that the three day period is eliminated, the extra work time is limited to what you can accomplish in the pits between matches. At most of the regionals last year, that time wasn't enough to do any real work. Hence, you can't really buy extra work time any more (at least not much work time).

In my opinion, this new rule significantly reduces the advantage of going to multiple regionals. In fact, if your robot sustains significant damage, multiple regionals may be a disadvantage. When looked at in this manner, I like this new rule. This way the 'big money' teams can do all of the travelling they want and it won't give them a big advantage over the smaller teams that can only attend one or two competitions.

One last thing - don't take this as me rekindling the old debate. That was beaten to death by now. I just want to give my opinion on why this rule was created.

(As a side note for all conserned, we are most likely doing two regionals this year).