Original Strategy Report
Our group has considered several strategies. The one that we’re considering right now is to basically go around the wall, bulldoze the blocks, go around the other side of the wall, open the gate, bulldoze the blocks in, and then activate the gate two more times to end the game. There are a few concerns with this plan. One is that the other robot will have the same plan or a similar plan, and that we will a) run into it, or b) complete the tasks more slowly than the other robot. If we run into the other robot while we are crossing sides, we hope that our robot will be able to overpower the other. However, to build this high-torque robot, we would lose speed. If we go with a high torque robot we would probably try to ensure a robot encounter. By this I mean that if we didn’t encounter the robot as we were crossing the sides, we would try to detect with route it was taking, and choose which side to cross back on so that we would run into it, and hopefully confuse it enough (or knock the blocks out of its grasp) so that we could still win. Another concern is that the opponents will do the same thing as we, but go for the SUV as well. Because we would have to open the gate three times, which we are estimating would take about ten seconds in all, we are not at all confident that we would end the game before the other robot would get everything in the pen. Why don’t we go for the SUV ourselves, you ask? Because we think that would leave too much time for a snatch-and-run robot to possibly beat us. Thus, we hope that you (Dr.Young) will decide to allow us to simply break the line three times to end the game. Ten seconds is too long.