Posted by Marc DeSchamp.
Other on team #125, NU-Trons, from Northeastern University and Northeastern University, Textron Systems, BLS, BHS, Milton Academy.
Posted on 1/12/2000 10:44 AM MST
Am I the only one out there who thinks the games have been getting increasingly wussy as the years go by? What ever happened to the good old days of tipping, beating, bashing, and scoring as many points as you could in two minutes?
I remember the time, during Rumble 2 (toroid terror), when Naval Undersea Warfare picked up and dumped Johnson and Johnson. I believe that was one of the more exciting moments in FIRST. Granted it was a bit of a shock to the Johnson and Johnson team, but the rule (up to that point) had always been, ‘go high, but be ready to pay the price.’ Well, I guess some people didn’t agree, so the tipping policy was changed to its current state, making it the first step toward a watered down version of the game.
Then came last year, where alliances were introduced, an iteresting concept to say the least. Then again, someone getting mangled by a peice of industrial machinery can be interesting… Not neccesarily good, but interesting… I believe that last year’s game clearly demnstrated that there are some major kinks in the theory of alliances, the most profound probably being disfunctional machines. There was a lot of justified griping about people getting stiffed as far as partners go, and I don’t think anyone can deny that, while promoting the warm and fuzzy goals of unity and sportmanship, alliances need (at least) a major overhaul. Thus making alliances step two in the journey from robot football to robot golf.
Step three in the process (though taken out of order) is the bumpers. Who came up with the idea of bumpers?! The rules have always stated that your machine should be bult to withstand abuse, rugged play, and a fair amount of smaking around. Now the rules state tha,t if you want to, you can build a rugged, solid machine, but if you don’t, you can pad your machine from abuse (heaven forbid you break a nail). What’s going to come next? No contact rules to protect the folks who don’t want to wreck their paint job? Ugh!
The final step came in this year’s game, the ultimate in wussification. FIRST succeeded in not only keeping the worst aspect of last year’s game, but magnifying it! Now, not only are you out of luck if you’re teamed up with a lousy machine, you’re out of luck if you’re playing against one too… What on earth is the logic here? I’m all for helping the competition, but sometimes it comes back to bite you in the (expletive). Fine, let’s be sportsmanlike, let’s loan our tools in the pit, let’s cheer for our opponents, let’s be all around nice guys, but let’s not have to score for the other team! That’s preposterous! FIRST has taken the entire idea of ‘let the best man/woman win,’ and flushed it down the toilet. There has always been a certain amount of luck involved in the games, but now, it’s just absurd. This year, the best machine is almost certain not to win, I don’t care who they are. We all know what they say (and I agree), that it’s not all about winning, but about the experience you have, but, all that taken into account, noone wants to put all that hard work in, just to see their machine ‘bad lucked’ right out of the game.
All in all, I think that, over the last few years, the competitions have been getting more and more tame. This last act has simply served to completely ‘declaw’ the competition as we know it. I have seen the game go from the rough and tough Ramp N Roll, Hexagon Havoc, and Toroid Terror (note the exciting sounding names), to the softer and cushier Ladder Logic, and Double Trouble (which soud more like events on the Price is Right than anything else), and now this. Well, I don’t know what kind of strategy FIRST’s design guys are employing, but I hope they realize soon that it stinks.
