Suffield Shakedown observations...

[Andy Grady]

Hi everyone!

Just got home from Suffield in what was a fun day of action. First off, I want to send out congrats to the Gael Hawks, Uberbots, and Litchbots for winning the scrimmage. Also congrats to Gael Force, BOP, and Panther Project for comming in second.

Here are some observations of the day. I invite those who attended to add on to this report so that we can get the word out there of what to expect.

-Speed = Good...the laps those little speedy robots made did make quite a difference.

-Hurdling = More Gooder!...By the end, it was easy to figure out that the best hurdlers were the teams running away with the competition. The Gael Hawks were amazing, the Uberbots were excelent, and Gael Force was strong as well. All three in the finals.

-Penalties, Penalties, Penalties...This was huge. A great number of matches were decided by penalties.

-The biggest culprit of the day was the "wrong way infraction" which teams would pass over a line, then slightly go back over the line. Keep in mind, once your robot completely passes the line you CANNOT let any part of your robot pass back over that line in the clockwise direction. I'd say there were about 20-30 infractions today on that penalty.

-Hitting outside the bumper zone was pretty evident. You cannot use your arm to hit a robot outside of the bumper zone...they are cracking down on this in a major way.

-Interferance Penalties were also called a bit. More often resulting from a team hitting another team that was trying to hurdle. A couple of times it was called for not allowing a team to pass.

-80" rule...its very easy to break this rule even if you think your robot is in spec! If you fall down, hit your E stop IMMEDIATELY! If your tower is extended, and you dont hit your e-stop, you get penalized!

-Eliminations...these were alot like the quaifiers. One problem I already see developing which worries me, is the fact that you cant really strategize to beat out a stronger team. Pulling off a "controlled defense" is not an easy task...because of this, its hard for the better robot not to win.

-Traffic Jams...suprisingly, these were not as plentiful as I expected. Occasionally there were points where things would jam up going around a turn. The biggest culprit of a jam up was a dead or tipped robot.

-Laps...I did see quite a few teams make a living out of doing laps. The enforcers, spontanious combustion, and Apple-Pi were incredible because they were so fast, yet so well controlled. They couldn't fully offset the hurdlers, but they definately made a big difference.

-Scoring...scoring system was amazing. Flat out.

-Reffing...referees have alot to cover, they have the toughest job this year for sure.

-Excitment...game had its good points and its bad points. I am still waiting til the end to hold out judgement, but I think its going to be a big hit to some people, and a big miss to others.

Once again, thanks for the great time today everyone. We'll see you in a couple of weeks!