CALIFORNIA?

[eugenebrooks]

Originally Posted by Dr.Bot

So the only successful defense is to with gracious professionalism push one of your opponents over or completely disable them. I don't know about you, but I would never try to play the game this way. (someone who did was DQ'd and lost the match and the round.) Still the Quarter-Finals of elimination was the closest thing to Battle Bots I ever saw at a FIRST event.

I don't see how you push a robot over, or break its wheels off, with GP,
but then I take your statement in the spirit it was intended...
I second the "battle bots" statement. The entire regional had a strong
flavor of this. We lost many wheel axles to high speed impacts, most
if not all of which were clearly done with the intent of disablement. One
student came over to our team nursing two broken axles after one match
and indicated that he took the several more hits at the third axle
because we were still moving and able to cap a goal... A push
without a high speed impact is certainly an allowable defense strategy,
but when the push fails to move the robot backing up for a high speed
impact to take a wheel off is not allowable in the 2005 rules and is a
bankrupt strategy in any event. Pulling robots over by entangling arms
is specifically against the rules. Any team that repeatedly does this sort
of thing will get an indelible, and well deserved, reputation for it.

We put fenders on our robot after running to the situation
with broken wheel axles, but some robots are configured to hit wheels
just an inch or two from the carpet. To build fenders to defend against
this you have to sacrifice ground clearance required to get over the
tubing used in the goals. Are we supposed to design robots with flip
out porcupine spikes? It would look good really impressive in battle bots...
I think that any team that thinks robot disablement is a viable strategy
is forgetting their GP, and they need to take a serious look at themselves.

We learned a lot about building a robot that is resistant to malicious
destruction at the Sac regional, and will benefit from the experience,
but it certainly left a bad taste. We hope that the teams that pursued
a destructive strategy, and got themselves and their allianced DQed out
of the finals, have also learned from their experience... It would be nice
if the FIRST rules for robot construction were adjusted so that contact
points between robots were regulated, so that pushing and shoving can
occur without attendant destruction and turnovers.