Qotw [01-12-03]: Changes to the competition, good or bad...?
 

Hi all. Now that all of you have a week to figure out the game and the kit of parts, and see the team updates, what do you think about the following question?

Question 01/12/03: There are all these changes to this year's competition and kit of parts... What changes you like, and what changes you want to see modified?

Have fun~! And good luck with the 5 weeks left.

-Ken L

The [originally] easy scoring was great...

but the virtual stacks thing is just trite. WHY!? WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY would you create a rule JUST for a so-called "clever" strategy, but in actuality it's TOTALLY not in the spirit of FIRST.

really SC8, SC9, and SC11 are the only rules i personally have a problem with...

other than that i love the game. especially the autonomous control! whee! i was wondering when the programmers were gonna get to have fun :p

*jeremy

Re: Qotw [01-12-03]: Changes to the competition, good or bad...?
 

Well, they proved that you can make a complete chassis with items in the kit, so that's a huge plus. I personally like the fact that we don't have to manipulate a spherical object this time around. My only complaint is that this game may be a bit too simple. FIRST is known for it's high level of complexness when it comes to scoring, and I'm glad they backked away from that the past couple years. My prediction is that most boxes will be shoved around, and stacks will be very hard to maintain. Perhaps the winners this year will be simple pushers who can also vie for the king of the hill. I liked it last year, but time will have to tell if I like it this year.

I think the changes to the rules, the budget and the "complex" scoring are just things we are going to have to deal with. Even though they don't make everyone happy, that's life. It's real world stuff ... things that we, the students, will have to deal with in the future! Instead of complaining about how we want things changed, maybe we should be focusing on how we can work around it and on building a robot that will do well!

- Katie

I didn't think we just have to "deal" with changes... Some of them are actually pretty cool, and would add a lot to the game.

Like the 2 new things introduced to the game this year:

Variety of surface for robot to run on
Autonomous period

Those are likely going to add a lot of challenge in developing a drive train that work for all surface, and into the programming aspect of the robot.

There are a lot more changes that are pretty good, but I just don't have time to name them all. Everyone is welcome to say what changes they like :P.

definitely...

i'm not disputing the game being "fair". i'm just saying that some of the changes aren't (in my opinion) in the spirit of FIRST.

i love a lot of the changes (auto. period, variety of surface, quasi-easy scoring, easy to build chassis...), but some of them need to be reconsidered...

*jeremy

Yep, with the new autonomous period, programmers actually have something to do now instead of making the same code every year =)

Ah, I thought you were asking about the changes in the Team Updates and stuff. As far as the changes to the game this year (new surfaces to work with, totes rather than balls, etc.) I like them! It adds to the challenge. Way cool! :) I was saying that we are going to have to deal with the changes that have been coming out in the team updates ... Yeah. I love the original changes to the game, though! :)

- Katie

Yup! I totally didn't expect people thinking about the team update changes when I thought of the question.... 2 days before team update 3 came out. I was hopping people could list out good and bad about the whole new season, and not just limiting to the kit and the game...