Is competing at multiple regionals REALLY fair ?

[sgreco]

Originally Posted by Arefin Bari

We can have a whole discussion about what you pointed out here. And I am sure that not all of us will agree with each other, simply because we are all different. All the regionals that I have watched/been to, the 3rd alliance partner was a great asset to the alliance. I understand that the 3rd alliance partner was usually a lap runner who gained the alliance an extran 20 points or so, but at the same time some teams changed their strategy to play defense throughout the game. At florida regional, team 342 was a third pick by team 179 and team 69. They kept team 103 away from the ball which crippled the alliance of 108, 103, and 395. Also team 148 played defense at championship. Maybe we all didn't notice them enough because of other robots hurdling and enough actions going on around the field, but Robowranglers kept opponents from capping/knocking the ball off/kept the ball away from their opponent. From all the games I have seen in FIRST, each alliance partners played important role. It was based upon teams' strategy to either put up more points for the alliance or play defense.

I definitely agree with what you are saying. The 3rd alliance partner is always a necessary part of any successful alliance. I just think that this year the first two teams on an alliance could win without a third partner a lot easier than they could in previous years.

I think that the amount of points that two good hurdlers with decent hybrid modes collected in a match was too much for most lapbots to compete with. Some of the really good hurdlers were just as fast as some of the lapbots. I also found that some of the really good hurdlers could get around the track and hurdle just as fast as some lapbots could do a lap.(I don't mean to say anything bad about lapbots, as many times they were important to an a alliance).