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Re: QUESTION OF THE WEEK!!!
Posted by Chris Hibner at 2/5/2001 11:42 AM EST
Coach on team #308, Walled Lake Monster, from Walled Lake Schools and TRW Automotive Electronics.
In Reply to: QUESTION OF THE WEEK!!!
Posted by Andy Grady on 2/4/2001 9:33 AM EST:
Personally, I'm for secrecy until the competitions begin. This year people are forgetting that, while we are all on the same team during a match, we are competing with each other as soon as that match ends. Helping everyone do everything before the competition doesn't help you out in the long run (as some people seem to think it does).
Example: Let's say our team helps team 505 (made up number) so that they can now put 10 black balls in the goal instead of 5. If we play a match with them, then they help us out by getting an extra 40 points (assuming both goals balanced and a 2X time multiplier) for that match. However, every other match this team plays, we've given them an extra 40 points per match against us in the qualification rounds. This doesn't help us out in any way. In the long run (unless we play every match with team 505), we've hurt ourselves. (math: if each team plays 8 matches, we've helped them increase their average score by 40 points per match but we've only increased our average score by 5 points per match (40 points / 8 total matches). Thus by helping them, we've hurt ourselves by giving up an advantage of 35 points per match over this team. This could be the difference between making the finals and not making it.)
So, once the competition starts, I'll be very open about our robot. But until then, I generally keep my mouth shut.
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