A stacker repents...

[Jason Haaga]

I was wrong about stacking. The UTC scrimmage shed some light on the major problems with it...

1) Grabbing an individual box out of the huge mass is near impossible. Throw in a couple robots trying to move through it all and it's downright impossible.
2) Many stackers made the assumption they would be able to find boxes in one particular orientation, or require lining up very precisely to grab them. That just doesn't work.

I still, however, stand by defending the top as a near-impossible task as well. We aren't the most powerful team out there, but we were able to muscle up through much stronger teams thanks to the lowered traction on the platform and the angle of attack the ramp gives you. Teams frequently swapped positions back and forth fighting over the top.
Simply, the challenge this year is the challenge itself, not your opponents. FIRST has given us a couple of options to approach the game, and neither is anywhere close to easy.