A few thoughts on gracious proffesionalism by a rookie mentor...

[IndySam]

Originally Posted by martin417

I did not say that defense was totally prohibited. I merely said that the idea, the spirit of the game, and of first, is to excel by achieving, not by preventing others from achieving (my opinion).

While some defense is legal by the rules, I do not believe that acting in a defense only mode, or intentionally damaging other robots displays gracious professionalism.

You are correct that intentionally damaging another robot is not GP and should lead to disqualification.

[dsmoker]

I think one other thing to consider is that not all teams have the same resources in terms of money and mentors, and as a matter of strategy build a robot that is mainly defensive, within the rules of the game, in order to play as part of a successful alliance. I see nothing wrong with the "team" way of strategizing, as long as, as stated above, the idea is to play legal defense and not intentionally damage another team's robot. We have live on defense the past two years, and did so quite successfully. This year, we chose to go on the offensive and had a little bit of a tougher time because, although our robot did what we intended it to do, it could not hurdle as fast as robots built by other teams with more money and mentors (and therefore more sophisticated designs, control systems, etc.). Not that I am begrudging these teams their resources, I am just saying that, for teams like ours, defensive and strategizing as part of an alliance when desigining can be a path to success in the game itself. And this comes from a team that won this year's Johnson and Johnson Gracious Professionalism Award at the CT Regional.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by IndySam

You are correct that intentionally damaging another robot is not GP and should lead to disqualification.

Whether or not it's GP, it's still explicitly against the rules.

Originally Posted by <G37>

ROBOT to ROBOT Interaction - Strategies aimed solely at the destruction, damage, tipping over, or entanglement of ROBOTS are not in the spirit of the FIRST Robotics Competition and are not allowed. In all cases involving ROBOT-to-ROBOT contact, the TEAM may receive a PENALTY and/or their ROBOT may be disqualified if the interaction is inappropriate or excessive...

I haven't seen any of the matches from the Peachtree regional, so I can't comment on the quality or quantity of defense there. But I will risk a wee bit of stereotyping as I point out that about every other match had one or more rookie teams, and that rookie teams are more likely to produce robots that end up being more effective in preventing other teams from scoring than in scoring themselves. If your 'bot can't keep up with the other alliance in laps and hurdling, but can hold them back enough for your partners to keep up, I believe playing defense is the appropriate strategy.

[Taylor]

I would argue that playing defense usually allows your alliancemates more scoring opportunities - the ultimate in teamplay. It also adds to the game challenge - the truly great teams/alliances find ways to overcome defensive strategies.

[kaszeta]

Originally Posted by boiler

I would argue that playing defense usually allows your alliancemates more scoring opportunities - the ultimate in teamplay. It also adds to the game challenge - the truly great teams/alliances find ways to overcome defensive strategies.

Agreed. Heck, one of my favorite years as a mentor[1] was Aim High, because strategy was continuously adapting throughout the competition season, and there were lots of adjustments, counter-strategies, etc (our team re-wrote our autonomous modes several times, and would even change our mode as we saw the other team lining up).

A huge part of FIRST is the team interaction: seeing what other teams are doing, and reacting to it.

[1] Also one of my least favorite, since the 8.2V bug rearing itself at Manchester was one of the most frustrating experiences I've had... But that's another story.

[ebarker]

throwing in a couple of cents here .....

I didn't see but a few matches there but it did seem like a couple of them were a little rough. I hope no one perceives us as being an offender.

Our defensive strategy was to knock opposing alliances balls off the rack near the end game. Our other two strategies was to make laps and knock balls off the rack for alliance mates that needed the ball.

In one match the bot in front of us repeatedly kept backing into our arms and kept creating an entanglement, ultimately causing a 40 point penalty and a yellow card against us. This was the first time I can ever remember seeing a crowd booing loudly and I hope to never see that again.

We seemed to convince the referees the contact wasn't intentional but the score stands.

We went to the pit, cut the arms in half, changed the software, and followed 10 feet back from the robot in front, plenty of stopping distance on slick highways.

aarrghh