Mission Information: The purpose of this mission is to simply keep the robot-operator from retrieving or "rescuing" the robot too many times. The referee penalizes a team by removing one of the barrels in the team's possesion (whether in Base, Parking Lot, or the foldable table ;-), thus causing a team to lose 10 points because each barrel in the team's possesion is worth 10 points. Also, the referre will prioritize taking white barrels before red. So, a team begins with five white barrels in Base, thus the team starts with 50 points. The team can also retrieve 3 more barrels (2 white and 1 red) from the Oil Drilling Mission. Therefore, there is a lot of strategy to consider: "Should I save time and grab the robot?" or "Should I save points and let the robot come bach to Base?"
Also, we would like to wish everybody a Happy Thanksgiving, and everybody travelling do so safely!
Richard
Jonathan's Comments: Note that no Barrels will be taken away if none are in Base. By the way, Base includes the Parking Lot only if you move the Barrels there by hand - if the robot moves the Barrels to the Parking Lot, they aren't considered to be in Base (and therefore the robot may touch them, but not the drivers).