Re: What FIRST did RIGHT...
 

I absolutely love the 3 team allainces
I love the chess match strategy that will have to be applied to win this game.
I love the fact that there are no balls in this year's game.
I love that the game is both simple enough to encourage rookies in need of confidence and complex enoguh to engage veterans looking for a challange.
I think this is going to be a great year.

Re: What FIRST did RIGHT...
 

There have been a number of issues I've had with recent games that I think FIRST has fixed this year.

1. Anyone can build a field element. The goals are all very small and portable. They also can be folded up and put away. This is very important for teams who don't have dedicated build facilities.

2. The scoring element isn't a ball. Balls are boring. We've gotten good at balls. Tetras are different but they're still fairly simple.

3. The game is strategic. Strategic is good.

4. There's only one thing to manipulate. This is good. It's not possible to pick the completely "wrong strategy" (i.e. the small balls in 2001).

5. I like the drive train. It makes life easier for rookies.

Congratulations to the game design team, I think you did very well.

Matt

Re: What FIRST did RIGHT...
 

I love the changes made to the robot base. It at least makes the teams that use the same base year after year, redesign.
No drill motors!!
Weighing without the battery!!
Tetras!!
Easy field setup!!

I could go on and on.

Just think how great it would be if they reduced the size and weight of the robot even more! I get goose bumps just thinking about it, a TRUE challenge!

Maybe next year.

Let's keep this thread going...
 

Another thing that comes to mind that FIRST did a great job on is managing the dynamic range of team capabilities.

What I mean is that there is a huge variation in capabilities of teams with Beatty, Wildstang, Cheesy Poofs/Kingman, etc. on one end and 3 kids and 1 hacksaw on the other.

This game can be played, and actually can result in exciting matches, with teams all on one end of the spectra or the other. Even more, I believe there will be exciting matches with mixed alliances playing mixed alliances.

Imagine a very likely match pairing: a KM* and 2 POC**'s Vs. 3 MOTR***'s

I think this could be a surprisingly good match. As would almost any roll of the dice you make for pairings.

The game design allows a space where KM's, MOTR's and POC's can compliment eachother and come away with a good experience. This was clearly not an accident. A lot of thought was put into creating this space. I think they did a nice job.

Hats off to FIRST.

Perhaps you can spend some time today thinking about what FIRST did right. If you come up with something or just a new appreciation for an aspect of the game, kit, admin, or whatever that other may take for granted, share it with us please.

Joe J.

*KM = pronounced "Kay Eem" = Killer Machine
** POC = pronounced "Pock" = Powered Ox Cart ;-)
*** MOTR = pronounced "Motor" = Middle Of The Roader ;-)

Re: What FIRST did RIGHT...
 

I agree with the KitBot part.

Even if your team does not use it on the actual competition robot, your programmers can use it it to make better autonomous modes and test new sensors.

Not only that, It takes only a few hours to build.

Speaking of the KitBot does anyone know what the frame is made out of?
I have yet to open it up?

Re: What FIRST did RIGHT...
 

The best thing about this year's game is that they made my job MUCH easier as a ref. Rule <G25> specifically makes it VERY clear what the refs will let you get away with and what they will nail you to the wall for. I know of WAY too many instances last year where half the refs on the field thought there should be a DQ and the other half didn't.

Field Setup will also be much faster this year, I predict. All you have to do is take all of the tetras off the field and hardly anything else! Also, it took us less than a day to make an accurate, good quality field.

Re: What FIRST did RIGHT...
 

Aside from the game itself, I love the full implementation of firstawards.org. Anyone who used it for the WFA entry last year can attest to it's easy functionality. On the other side, it's judge friendly too. I believe this will help to increase the total number of WFA and Chairman's entries this year and will help keep the judge's time in that little room to a minimum so they can interact with teams more.

Re: What FIRST did RIGHT...
 

I really like the new CMUcam vision systems and their potential for bringing more widespread and much-needed excitement to autonomous mode. Thank you, FIRST/IRI, for helping the blind to see! Miracle workers, I tell you. :p

Re: What FIRST did RIGHT...
 

I like that this year's game and KOP makes FIRST accessible to Rookies while given veteran teams a raised bar so that it remains interesting for both ends. The targets are there to reach for.

I also like the extremely balanced scoring system this year. There is no bonus that is out of line with what you can score playing the game the way it's intended, ie no king of the hill (2003) or hanging from a bar (2004). In fact that's how you get most of the bonuses.

Pete

Re: What FIRST did RIGHT...
 

In addition to what's been said, I also like the fact that there probably aren't going to be too many "killer strategies." With the ability to cause huge point swings by adding a single tetra, drivers and coaches will have to keep sharp and stay on their toes the whole match, instead of just sitting back and letting one strategy unfold for the 10,000th time. It should make things very exciting...

Re: What FIRST did RIGHT...
 

Let's see... Well one thing is certain. This is definately the most original game I have seen. And as always FIRST gives us lots of new "toys" for the team programers to play with. :D

Flying Monkeys???
 

Hey guys,

Today for the first time, I saw the Breaker Panel from Innovation First

I don't want to get negative or anything, but it really made me MAD.

If you folks out there can see that beautiful improvement to the kit and hold it in your HANDS and still not mention it on this thread, well...

...you guys are just not trying, that's all!

I am serious. As a past FIRST inspector, as a FIRST Dad (go MechWarriors #573) and as a FIRST participant, I almost cried aloud, "Halleluia!" when I saw it.

It looks beautiful. Just what we need.

Now... ...are there other pearls laying amoung you swine?

I don't know, but you better not let me beat you to any more of them.

"Don't make me call my flying monkeys..."

Joe J.

P.S. I just searched on "panel" to see if perhaps I was wrongly blaming some of you. Ryan Foley gets a pass from the swine remark, "..that amazing breaker panel from IFI,..." though he didn't really give it its just due. But fair is fair.

Re: What FIRST did RIGHT...
 

I really like the fact that any team can know where their bot is on the field at any time, using only parts and code supplied by FIRST!

Also, I am very glad there is no huge/complicated center piece to this years game. We constructed our goals and tetras in under an hour. Now, thats a new record!!

Re: What FIRST did RIGHT...
 

well, i'm excited! i'm going to keep this brief, since everything i was thinking someone has already mentioned on the thread, but this year FIRST really did a good job on leveling out the playing field. (no pun intended considering the floor is nice and flat this year) anyways, i guess what i'm trying to say that regardless if you are a rookie team or if you've been involved in FIRST for years, this Game has a lot of new things incorporated in it that really gives rookies a great fighting chance for once. There's a lot of room for imagination, i cant wait to see what everyone has come up with.

on behalf of pink, i wish everyone the best of luck. :cool:

Re: What FIRST did RIGHT...
 

Since no one has specifically mentioned this so far, I would like to congratulate FIRST on finally making sure that there was nothing missing from the KOP this year. I'm always the one taking inventory, and usually it drives me crazy when I can't find several of the most important parts, but this year-- everything was there! A few pieces seemed to be missing, but within a day, after checking out this wonderful site, we found out what was up with those sensors and the 'missing' motors, so everything was there! It was definitely a relief to all of us out there who freak out about this.

I also like how, even with all the responsibilities loaded on the robots, the human players are still given important things to do, and are kept on their toes by use of those pressure mats.

I'll post more as I think of it.