1993 U.S. First Competition (part 2)

The next day, we went to the local high school’s gym, which was already set up. Here’s how it worked -- four teams per round with four goals; in the center were five large kickballs and 20 water-filled balls. Think of that game “Hungry Hungry Hippos” but with remote-controlled robot hippos.
Because the large balls couldn’t fit under the goal crossbars, we figured that a “small ball approach” was the only realistic option. And because our robot was small enough to underneath the cross bars, we could sneak into others’ goals. We thought that was the obvious, best design and approach.
But like mixed martial arts, there’s no 100% way of knowing what style is best until someone gets punched in the face. On paper, every idea’s just as good as the next one. Here I am answering a reporter's questions like we were going to be champions. However, it soon became clear which designs were superior, and it was clearly not ours.
Our inability to capture the large balls proved to be a *major* design weakness. The most successful teams had robots that could scoop up at least two of the five large balls within seconds. That’s what the winning team did in this video; they then locked things in by parking right in front of their goal, ensuring no one else could sneak in.
For me, the range and creativity of designs was absolutely astonishing. For example, the blue one in the bottom right picture was built to be un-flippable. The wood one in the back was designed specifically to pick up the large balls and lift them over the goal bars – the one thing we thought was impossible. Like the Vizzini character in The Princess Bride, I was completely stymied by things I thought were “inconceivable.”