Was play this year too aggresive?

[Koko Ed]

What I rememeber mostly form this year's competition was this:



That being said, that was part of the competition and our troubles were due to a flaw in our design therefore we had no one to be upset with but ourselves. If you don't like physical play build a stronger robot.

[Alex Cormier]

tell me what you think about this match.... after the match the driver of the team had came to us about the match and asked if he could help or his team could do anything.

http://www.soap.circuitrunners.com/2.../new_sf1m1.wmv

i had no problem after the match but during the match i had a problem... it's all ok to me now and all but i just want to no others opinions...

[Pin Man]

Originally Posted by Pit Bull 1126

tell me what you think about this match.... after the match the driver of the team had came to us about the match and asked if he could help or his team could do anything.

http://www.soap.circuitrunners.com/2.../new_sf1m1.wmv

i had no problem after the match but during the match i had a problem... it's all ok to me now and all but i just want to no others opinions...

hmmm... I think I'd be more upset if I was team Kaptin Kruch 79... You prevented them from hanging... But on the other hand... How much damage did they cause???

[Alex Cormier]

Originally Posted by Pin Man

hmmm... I think I'd be more upset if I was team Kaptin Kruch 79... You prevented them from hanging... But on the other hand... How much damage did they cause???

bent a few things, sent us to the pits a few times... it was good that they took a timeout tho...

i was really looking for the real sm matches but cant find em b/c thats where i got angry agasint the other teams...

[Pin Man]

Koko Ed, I remember those matches... It must have been tough watching you guys tip... I believe we even tipped you once... I don't like seeing bots tip but thats just how it goes... :/

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Pin Man

Koko Ed, I remember those matches... It must have been tough watching you guys tip... I believe we even tipped you once... I don't like seeing bots tip but thats just how it goes... :/

Yeah. It was tough but even our operators joked about it a bit afterwards.
What the heck was that funky spinning around the pole defense your robot was doing?

[Pin Man]

hahaha I didn't see any pole defense there... hahaha hmmm

[S.Nickens]

I felt the aggression level in this years game was fairly low. Aggression implies intent to
hurt or intimidate. To eliminate any type of aggression you would have to put only one robot
on the playing field. I don't think you could generate the kind of excitement that FIRST
competition does by doing away with the possiblilty of a few people taking things a little
too far. The competitions that I witnessed showed that the majority of teams and thier drivers
understood the idea of GP.

[Pin Man]

Originally Posted by S.Nickens

I felt the aggression level in this years game was fairly low. Aggression implies intent to
hurt or intimidate. To eliminate any type of aggression you would have to put only one robot
on the playing field. I don't think you could generate the kind of excitement that FIRST
competition does by doing away with the possiblilty of a few people taking things a little
too far. The competitions that I witnessed showed that the majority of teams and thier drivers
understood the idea of GP.

I fully agree... You mentioned though about people taking little things too far... Well that was one of my problems with last years competition... Too many robots flipped because of the ramp and everyone would say that they did it on purpose... I don't know if anyone can make sense of this... Its hard to explain but thats just my 2 cents... Actually only worth 1 cent...

[sanddrag]

One thing is I don't know why everyone always puts down fast powerful drivetrains. They can be the most brilliant feature of a robot. Sure, they don't flip out to twice the size and articulate all over the place but they do make the machine get somewhere. Would it be as much fun to watch if the competition was a bunch of sitting boxes?

[aaronbr28040]

This year it looked a whole lot more physical than it actually was. Our team flipped a good many robots, but most of those that we flipped were ones that had large unprotected tires that ran right up our box. We even flipped a few in autonomous mode at Palmetto when we were completly stopped. I think that the physical aspect of it makes it better for those watching from the stands. Although this is my first (and last year as a student, i will be a mentor next year) I have seen matches from last year, our transmissions, plus the battle scars on last year's bot. In my opinion FIRST tryied to calm the game down a little this year and they did an awesome job. They kept it aggressive enough that it is interesting to those in the arena, but calm enough that you didnt have to build everything with armor plating.
-Aaron

[Rob]

I am not sure how we can easily define "Too agressive", there have been quite a few threads about that following nationals, and none of them seem to have a clear answer. I will say this...FIRST is getting more and more agressive. Teams are learning that stout machines with powerful drivetrains have the ability to nullify elegant machines with complex devices and appendages. Is this a bad thing...maybe. We can learn to deal with it though.

Look at how the went. In the Archimeded elims, there were 2 clearcut favorites. These two alliances consisted of Stellar and intricate offensive machines (71 and 45) paired with fast a bruising defensive machines (494 and 716). The strategy employed by both alliances was to use the bruising partner to keep the scoring machine free from defense, allowing them to win the match on their own. This strategy allowed both alliances to make it to the division finals. I knew that whoever won that round would go on to win that championship because the strategy worked so well.

The point I am trying to make is that you need to consider a good mix of agression and scoring ability to make a winning alliance. The defensive teams in these alliances were not only able to punish their opponents, but they were also able to keep other defenders off of their scoring partners backs. So the key is to be good enough at what you do that you can work in a partnership like these.

Maybe there should be some changes or clarifications to the rules system. Maybe we should hand out more penalties or try to limit the amount of defense that can e played. I personally think that teams now have more to think about when conceptualizing and designing machines. The only way to stay competitive in real life is to adapt to adverse situatiuons, and the same holds true here.

Rob