What's so great about defense?

[archiver]

Posted by Joe Taylor at 04/20/2001 12:34 PM EST


Engineer on team #461, West Side Boiler Invasion, from West Lafayette High School and Purdue University / Schlomberger.


In Reply to: What's so great about defense?
Posted by Kevin Sevcik on 04/20/2001 12:17 AM EST:



It's foolish to think that this years game eliminated the complaints you spoke of earlier. Obviously there were situations in prior years competitions where "pinning" and "pushing" were the only methods employed in stopping an opponent. But the purpose of this competition is to get kids excited about engineering, and i think little shove matches spice up the competiton, especially in situations like last year with opposing teams fighting for position on the ramp and bar. Perhaps I would see this years competition in a better light if it resolved any of the issues of "sore feelings" and wrestlingesque brutality, but they're still there. I'm sure everyone saw at least one round where a robot fell down in front of the ramp and for the remainder of the round that robots "allies" proceeded bash the robot in an attempt to move it out of the way. Now FIRST isn't about robot shove matches (thats why i do battlebots), but i don't see how three robots beating one incapacitated one is better than 2 robots shoving 2 others.