Note the limited amount of balls on the floor. What's a bummer is that no less than two balls fell out of the goal when we capped, a 250 would definitely have been nice. But the 230 was plenty nice enough for us, and the 2x cap was much more important than a measely 2 5pt balls.
I absolutely love this picture. Thanks to TechnoKat Lee Hinze for taking it. There are so many things going on here.
… and most importantly, look at the two blonde guys in the team 45 drivers station hugging each other. The student with his back to us (Austin) is hugging his dad (Delphi engineer Steve Butler). That look of pure happiness on Steve’s face is priceless.
That was quite a moment.
Andy B.
I knew you guys would do it. In this thread http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showpost.php?p=239982&postcount=9 I mentioned that I thought you guys would be the highest scoring robot of the year. I thought you had it at Midwest. I’m glad you did it because I had some side action going on that you would pull it off. You cut the timing a little too close for comfort, though.
I also want to give a little credit here to Ken Patton for his “Finger and Thumb” prediction. He hit the nail on the head. Take that, Paul! (ha ha)
-Chris
I captured a view of some of Team 45 cheering in the stands immediately afterwards.
I am pround to say that I help with the real time scoring on the blue side. Thats me sitting 2 seats to the right of the IFI person.
That was my favorite match. I don’t care how much people dislike certain aspects of the game this year. The simple fact is that it was so much fun to watch and play. Matches like this made me glad I gave up my Saturday to sit at the computer.
Great job guys.
ummm, there was a meeting of the “2 and out” club going on at the far right side. Now I know why Andy didn’t come down and talk to us.
Ken
P.S. thumbs up Paul!
Patton,
You weasel! Your finger and thumb scenario did not pan out. Never once did you say a thumb was a robot playing defense on the field. I still claim that 2 TechnoKat like robots would beat a Beatty & Martian (1 offense + 1 defense) team. We may never know.
Here’s how I remember the conversation.
Ken: “The winning alliance at nationals will consist of a finger and a thumb.”
Chris: “huh?”
Ken: “There will be one offensive robot (the finger), and one strong defensive robot (the thumb) that will keep the other team from scoring.”
Chris: “Sounds reasonable.”
Paul: “No way. A finger and a thumb could never beat two great offensive machines.”
Ken: “I’m just saying, the alliance that wins the championship will consist of a good finger, and a good thumb.”
Paul: “Okay, you’re on!”
Then I remember something about singing karaoke in Atlanta. What song did you choose, Paul?
You know Chris, Paul is partially right on this one - I was hoping he might just let me get away with this. He knows that my ideal thumb (and the one I thought would win it all) was a pole-dominator in the style of 190,930,330,237. So, he is <gulp> kind of correct in his observation that I’m being a weasel.
But, Paul, there is no doubt that there was a thumb on the field.
Ken Patton
Team 65
The Weasel Brigade
Ken,
Very true. However, there were not two fingers on the opposing alliance. My arguement is that a defender trying to stop two offensive robots will get beat very severely. Example: Team 33 and Team 45 (or 303,461,469,1241,93) both have their robots full of balls. O.K. defender, what do you do? Try to stop both and you will stop neither. Try to stop one and the other will score unstopped. Chances are the defender will lose. An off season competition will prove me right … I know it!
-Paul
Okay for your consideration,
45 + 33 vs. 494 + 60.
494 plays big D on those pesky technokittens. Shuts them down. 33 goes nuts on offense. 60 does the same. 494 and 60 both hang.
Who wins?
Finger + Thumb.
I gotta agree with Ken on this one Paul.
A more versatile alliance can take down a strictly offensive alliance. Especially if they have the magic hanging capability. 
The defensive robot doesn’t have to stop both offensive robots. Just one of them. They only need to slow the offensive alliance down enough so that their partner can outscore them.
John
John,
Let me ask you this: did 494 completely shut down 45? No. And that was when they were only worrying about one robot. Chances are that 494 (or the defensive robot of your choice) will only slow down one of the offensive robots. If you don’t like the 33 & 45 matching, how about 45 & 60? 60 and 45 doing all offense while 494 is trying to stop them. When 494 goes to hang so does 60, leaving 45 to cap. If 494 does the defense thing on the stationary, then 60 will defense the defense leaving 45 to cap.
The bottom line is that 494 had to stop 45 from capping, because they could not stop them from getting enough small balls (11 - 13). Add another robot that concentrates, let’s say, on the movable goal and caps it. The defensive robot doesn’t have a prayer. I am not saying defense doesn’t play a part, but 2 robots that PRIMARILY play offense (2 fingers) will beat the finger and the thumb.
Back to the point: Our bet was that a POLE DOMINATOR paired with an offense oriented robot would win. That did not happen. The fact that a defensive robot on the floor is now called a thumb is beyond the scope of the original definition.
However, given this new definition I still say 2 fingers will beat a finger and the “new” thumb.
I would say that the chances of beating a 33 and 45 aliance are not very good. Two offensive robots of that caliber are hard to offset by defense no matter who you have as a partner. However…it is very possible. Instead of focusing on a robot in particular, your best bet more than likely would be to sit yourself in front of the goal to prevent one of those robots from scoring. Of course that is a difficult task to do with the 45 arm, but it is your best bet. If you are successful in stopping a doubler, and your partner goes unscathed on the other side, scoring, capping, and hanging…you should be able to walk away from the contest with a victory. Of course, there are alot of variables, and there are alot of counter defenses to what I just said…thats what made this years game so great.
Hey Andy,
Welcome to the debate. I’m glad there is someone on my side of the argument. I thought I was all alone.
A little history: Ken and I were on the MidWest team for the game design committee this year (we had no idea what the game was, we just came up with our ideal game and submitted it along with rules, etc.). Our big discussion was designing a game that a finger and a thumb could not dominate (the nomenclature came from Verbrugge … picture a thumb squeezing the life out of the game). We felt that the 2003 game could be dominated by a finger and a thumb and wanted to avoid that at all costs.
It came as no surprise when the game was revealed Ken and I started debating if the thumb could dominate. His idea was that a bar dominator, aka thumb, along with a good offensive robot would win it all. The story grows from there, but that is how it all started.
I think in the case of what you state here, the bar dominator and offensive bot could do well…but, as we found out there was an extreme flaw to that idea of strategy. What ended up happening in the case of bar domination / offensive bot, is that the offensive bot would end up getting picked on by a good defensive robot. Good case would be with WPI. WPI could hang in autonomous mode…which in itself was quite impressive. However, everytime they did so, they left their partner high and dry with no bodyguard for protection. Any robot that hung from the outset, would leave its partner to get tooled by a good defensive robot, thus resulting in a loss if the defenders partner was a high caliber offensive robot. I dont necessarily think two offensive robots was the answer either. I feel that actually the answer was machine specific. Some robots would work perfect with others, and probably be close to unbeatable. This year, more than any other…there was no “Beatty move”, which is kinda ironic considering Beatty won.
After watching the national competition this year, I have a vision of 716 + 233 vs. any two offensive robots. the 716 + 233 monster would play defense on the offensive machines for the entire match, then with 10-15 seconds remaining, they would dash for the hang. They will have at least 130 points, and their offensive opponents will end up with at most 50.
However, when I initially thought of this, I forgot to factor in the possibilty of the offensive machines hanging. Or the offensive machines being able to, themselves, play defense. A strictly defensive alliance has to basically rely on the fact that they can both hang and at most, only one of their opponents can. 233 + 716 has a good chance of taking out a 33 + 45 alliance, but only if they do it right.
To be honest, I would feel much more comfortable as part of the 33 + 45 alliance, because you do not necessarily need a strong(er) robot to play very good defense.
Now, if the alliance has one defensive and one offensive robot, then the chances of them taking out two offensive machines are very high. Look at the last match of the championship. 494 diverted their opponent’s attention away from 71, allowing 71 an enormous amount of breathing room to rack up their score.
(ohh… i just read john’s example)
I think 33 + 45 would win (the alliance, not the assumed form of play); it would just require 33 to assume a “defensive” role, which I’m sure they are capable of. 33 would prevent 494 from disabling 45. 45 then gets free roam to fill their goal with 5 point balls and cap it: 170 points. 60 would put about 14 balls into their goal, cap, then hang. 190 points? No. 45 would cap their goal earlier allowing them to go over and uncap 60’s goal. 120 points for the 60 alliance. At this point 494 would perhaps get away and attempt to uncap 45’s goal. If they succeed, 45’s score drops to 85 points. But 33 should be able to prevent the uncapping. If 33 hangs while 494 is decapping, then their (33+45’s) score jumps up to 135. If 494 decides not to uncap 45’s goal and instead goes for the hang, then their alliance’s score would jump to back to 170. The end result: a tie. Eek. Its getting hairy now. But looking back at this possible outcome, a 33 + 45 alliance has more room to beat a 60 + 494 alliance.
The wild card maneuver…
Team 60, with its sheer capping speed, caps the opponents goal at the very begining of the match, rendering allllll those little balls that 33 and 45 can get, useless until they can manage to pull the ball out of the stationary goal…not an easy feat may I add.
My point is: Nobody is dominating the match.
Good game this year.
Makes it easier for 45. They deliver their balls to their HP just the same, then backs up and uncaps their goal. They have a big ball right there. It would not be hard to imagine that 45 would have already had a big ball. They could just as easily do a mirror move (reminded of 67 + 469 in the Grand Semifinals) and cap 60’s goal, pushing the big ball waaaay down. That would take 60 a little bit of time to get out. Or, more likely, 45 would just drop the ball they picked up and use the ball placed on their stationary goal. 60 would diddle around trying to pick up the big ball from the ground, then move on to corralling, while 45 is proceeding as planned: big ball in hand, and a slew of small balls to boot. Eh?
