Competition.....or touchy feely happy bonding time?

[archiver]

Posted by Mike Aubry at 1/6/2001 1:14 PM EST


Engineer on team #47, Chiefs, from Pontiac Central and Delphi .


In Reply to: Competition.....or touchy feely happy bonding time?
Posted by aTm on 1/6/2001 12:03 PM EST:



Hey, know what? I think I agree with you for the most part. This years game(?), although an interesting set of problems to solve, leaves me quite perplexed. For the past few years I've felt like Alice in Wonderland, only Wonderland continues to grow into more and more of a social experiment, than a competition. Talk about suffering from multiple personality syndrome or in todays terms, Bipolar personality! Don't take me wrong, I love FIRST, I love the interaction and teaching (everyone that knows me, knows that), but I just don't get the extremes that the event organizers have gone to in the past few years. I like building a robot that can compete against the best of the best. I relish the chance to go one on one against anyone elses machine. I understand that many people don't feel that that is what FIRST should be (aka - take it to Battlebots if you don't like it response). But, when no matter how hard you work to develop a robot that does an outstanding job of completing a very difficult set of tasks, is relegated to a scoring system wherein luck of the draw (capability of the combined 4 and delivering of promised capabilities) determines your placement I'm not sure I like that. I guess thestretcher is in response to the "Box of Rocks" problem that we have seen in the past. There are some interesting twists with the timer multiplier button, and I like game itself. Manipulating both Very big and small balls will be fun (as usual) Pushing / Pulling a stretcher over a teeter taughter adds a bit of suspense. Human players get an opportunity to shoot baskets - again. So once again the challenge has been offered - and we all have the opportunity to attack a multi-level problem. Just my thoughts, Good Luck to All. In closing, What one robot characteristic do you think will be essential to be included in the arsenal? (I doubt that anyone robot will be able to complete all the tasks necessary to Max. the score - TOO many characteristics needed and not enough, weight, or TIME.