[FTC]: Defense robots and competition

[Joachim]

Originally Posted by gblake

Your comment [ ] makes me want to [ ] shout "Bad mathematician".

. . . . Once the rules are published, the game is what it the rules say it is. No amount of opinions will change that one whit. . . .

Blake

This is certainly the ideal. But actual competitions vary.

There is a real (meaning non-imaginary) bias, at some events at least, that favors playing offense and disfavors playing defense. At such events "Gracious Professionalism" sometimes tends to be thought of as a rule for how robots interact (even those on opposite alliances), not just for people.

Although the game ideally is only what the rules say it is, in reality it is played and judged in a larger political, social, and economic environment that sometimes disfavors defense. I suppose this is not unrelated to trends in kids' sports, like soccer without scorekeeping with trophies for all. I think teams with enough experience in FTC--and team members with experience competing in other youth-centered competitions--tend take this into account, and they are only being realistic to do so.

You don't need a large number of opinions to make a difference--one or two held by the head ref or by the FTC local affiliate partner is enough. Though they may all have good intentions, they're not all good mathematicians.