How on Earth are spectators meant to easily discern who wins?

[Paul Copioli]

Since my team played this weekend and I was on the field for 11 of our 12 qualifying matches and all 4 of our elimination round matches, I feel compelled to add to this topic.

Koko Ed mentioned 229 getting pommeled all weekend at Finger Lakes. This was true. 229 and my team have very similar scoring devices (yes, we collaborated) and we did not get pommeled as much. 229's and 217's first match was against each other and we put up that ridiculous stack on the side goal that is posted on CD. We basically put a target on our own backs right from the start.

We were fortunate enough to have our second match after 229's second match and we saw the beatings they were taking. While waiting in the queue watching the 229 match, our alliance modified our strategy to prevent this. The "run your blockers" strategy works pretty well and the scorer can put up big numbers while the blocker is blocking. Finger Lakes had many reliable robots and many great blocking robots that were our partners and pretty much made it so we wouldn't be touched. This was exciting to be a part of and to see all the juking and pushing.

Also, defense at the goals is very exciting. Defense at the loaders would not be exciting. The penalties and their amounts are designed to keep defense away from the loading zones. Defending a goal while a scorer is trying to score is very exciting. By the way, at Finger Lakes the best goal defenders where not bashers (or pushers) they were the scorers. Teams 1507 and 237, two of the best scorers at the competition were also the best goal defenders. Our hardest time fighting against blocks was against the scorers.

With that said, I can tell you that 3 good scorers will beat pretty much any combination of other robots. If you send one robot to defend one of the other team's scorers and they score just one tetra, you are at a disadvantage. We learned that the hard way. Being a target all weekend and successfully using the "use a blocker" strategy during qualifying, I was biased to have two awesome scorers and one blocker. I was able to convince our elimination partners that this strategy was the strategy to use and I was dead wrong. Team 237 was convinced we needed three stackers and I must say they were dead on! The "one interference bot" strategy may work in the qualifying rounds, but with the quality of robots this year it will not work against a three good stacker alliance. To some this may have been obvious for a long time, but not for me. I know better now and will not make this mistake again. There is a well known quote in sports, "Offense wins games, defense wins championships." I think this year's FIRST game is the opposite. Here is my modified saying, "Defense wins qualifying rounds, offense wins championships."

Sorry for the long post,

Paul