the fact that the game was impossible to strategise for made it way to easy (if that makes a whole lot of sense) it was just, go out there, go for a goal, and pull.

the scoring was easy, but the game was hard to explain, without visual aide. people sortof get that glazed look by the time you get to the three-goals-in-the-center-zone part. and like everyone else is saying, it wasn't very spectator friendly. most of the matches looked the same, even to me, which is sortof sad, being the strategist...

I think that there was a definite strategy element to this game. It was just a lot more straightforward than in past years. You needed a plan and strategy, even if it was the same as what you did every time. This was especially true when going up against harder teams. When we would srtategize, we would first determine who was the biggest threat, so to speak. We would use that to plan our strategy and deny the goals to whomever we thought was the better team. In that respect, you could do some strategic planning, but definitely not as much as in past years.

well im sad you feel this way. Being the head strategist on 121, I know how many different scenerios we had. Being a hybrid bot allowed us to have many different plans of scoring the extremely high qp's we had. This game was in no way impossible to plan for. you knew your opponent, you knew your partner, both well in advance. you can scout weakness and strengths for all of them and build a plan from that. you have other teamates in the stands jotting notes on what each team does on the field and anythings else worth writing about them. I know our plans were more complex than grab a goal and push. we unlike most teams decided to actually pick the balls of the ground and put them into a goal.

but in my opinion about the game itself it was very good. you had 3 goals and 4 robots on the field. many times 2 or 3 would go after the same goal, especially if there are some balls in it. It was a great improvement over 2001 and it was very simple. 3 times losers score also was great in my opinion.

and the only maches that looked the same to me were the ones with 4 boxes on wheels going after the same goal.

I've gotta agreed that there was a definite strategy part to this years game.. if it wasn't for strategy, you could simply look at other teams.. think oh 'they're better/stronger/faster/etc' then us, they'll win.. why would you bother to play?

There are many unique and cool designs (regardless of who by). Some seem unbeatable, some completely defeatable.. but neither is totally one or the other, and it all depends on strategy.

Anyone who knows us knows we do the same thing virtually every time.. we do that because we haven't teams that can consistently beat us at it (our individual task, not our alliance strategy). Sure, we've broken and been beaten that way (it happens to everyone.. in the middle of a match, doesn't strategy effect how you react.. do you have a back-up plan? and sometimes there's not enough time to fix in between.. what else can your robot do?? how does it help? another strategy decision)...

All these games look simple, but if you want to you, you can make them as fun as you want.. the element surprise always exists.. and in the team strategists bag of tricks.

I may be biased because that's my job on the team... but I know as we look forward to this MD Fair Competition.. I see a big strategy challenge for many reasons.

Even 2001 had some good strategies (as bad as the game was) although they were based on the score vs. time element.

If that made any sense....

I thought this game was pretty good. Personally I think the 1999 game was the best I've participated in, but that's my opinion :)

There's always going to be some sort of problem with the game - FIRST is great, but they're just like any other organization - human :)

As to some teams having an "unfair advantage", it really depends on the balance between the amount of work engineers do, and the amount that students do. It isn't good when engineers do most of the work - on the flipside, teams that are comprised of only students, are restricted by their lack of experience and knowledge.

My team, Team 188, is for all intensive purposes, all students. We have 5 mentors and 1 engineer (who are key to our team's existence), but about 88% of the robot is conceptualized and built by the students.
This year we did really well, making it to the eliminations in all our regionals (2), as well as the nationals. Our robot was very solid, and most of our team agrees that this was the best robot we've ever built.

But still, teams like WildStang and Beatty blow us away - teams which have engineers, can come up with really amazing stuff, as I'm sure many will agree. Without these teams, it might be easier for student-run teams to advance farther, but our horizons and creativity probably wouldn't be stimulated as much.

What I really did not like at all about last years game was how the game changed in the finals. Now if you had a robot with torque all you had to do was grab a goal and hold them.
It just became a boring tug-of-war.
At least the earlier rounds required strategy. Anyone can run a robot over, grab a goal and just sit there.

The game was a strategic challenge, but I have to agree it was too complex for the spectators. The three times the losers score was interesting in qualifying rounds, but in the finals the only strategy was to snatch the goals and keep them in your zone, which kind of put ball bots at a fairly significant disadvantage.