paper: Spanking the Children

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by cbale2000

I couldn't agree more. One thing that I've seen in recent years is that many teams no longer build a "robust" robot that's designed to handle the intensity of the game. The robots we all used to build prior to 2007 (the first year bumpers were mandated) make some of the chassis I see these days look like they're made out of tin foil.
Personally I think teams that decide to take extreme weight-reducing measures by compromising the durability of their bots should do so at their own peril.

I do think that offense should be deregulated more (getting a penalty called because a defending robot gets itself in the way of your collector is absurd), but I don't think you necessarily need to super regulate defense (like in 2008) to accomplish a balanced game. I still think 2006 was one of the best, most balanced games to date, and it included an open field, lots of game pieces, good defensive robots, good offensive robots, and few bumpers.

Emphasis mine.

That's the big key here, by having multiple ways to score it cuts the defense across a couple different people. In 2006 there were potentially 3 scoring robots and only 2 defending robots except potentially in the last period of play. Compare that with this year where exactly one robot is capable of scoring points for their alliance. This leaves 2 defenders on one robot by virtue of having nothing better to do.

I think the core problems with this years game stem from the lack of alternate ways to help your alliance. There are exactly two ways your robot can provide benefit to your alliance: 1) Manipulation of the ball. 2) Inhibit the opponent from manipulating their ball. Being as only one robot can do #1 the other 2 need to do SOMETHING.