Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

Overdrive was fun, but not on par with what I've come to expect. My biggest problem was the lack of interaction between robots, especially within an alliance. In other years, an alliance with a good combination of robots (robots that worked together well) could beat a team with "better" robots. This year, it seems to be more of an "every man (or robot) for himself", you score as much as you can, and hope your alliance partners do the same. The fact that there were only two balls for three robots seemed like an artificial solution to this.

Also, name one thing where direction of traffic requirements were a good idea. The answer is not bumper cars.

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

First of all, Im going on the record of saying I didn't like Overdrive after Kickoff. When we realized we could shoot this ball I started liking it. Speed and powerful launchers make for a very exciting game. Overall, I have to say, I liked Overdrive.

Plusses:
1. This was an exciting game.
2. Simple to explain.
3. Hybrid Mode - The amount of points able to be scored actually meant something this year. 07 the points were too low to really mean anything. The points for navigating the field were a real boon to teams without many programming resources.
4. Focus on scoring - Coming from a team that had an arm sheared off during a quarter finals match last year I was quite thankful that the focus of this years game was on driving and scoring not on preventing your opponents from scoring.

Deltas:
1. Bumpers - This is going to be the most controversial comment. I dont like bumpers. They meant that teams could play bumper cars. How many ramming calls were there this year? We were moving faster than ever and running into each other harder than ever. I know there was a lot of damage done to some machines this year. Im not saying that they were a bad idea, just that their use needs to be rethought. Too many teams thought, "Oh they have bumpers, I wont break anything." That is dangerous
2. Penalties - This seems to be a pretty common feeling, the G22 penalty was too high. 5 points would have been reasonable. Either that or cut down on how many were called. Only call when the whole robot, or the majority, breaks the plane. The fact was, half the time you cant see your robot on the other end of the field anyway. Also, interfering with a hurdler, great idea, poorly done. If a team is sitting right at the corner with their arm up and they get hit its a call. Great, so a team stops there and as we come around we get a penalty. Add into that, the refs were too busy calling G22s.


Overall, this year ranks up there. My top 3 would be:

1. 06 Aim High
2. 04 First Frenzy
3. 08 Over Drive

Aim High was one of the most exciting games I ever saw. First Frenzy had so much going on, and I know I will never forget seeing 85 traversing the bar. And Over Drive, 2337 made this year for me.

This games ranking 6.6/10

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

I think think the suheer simplicity of Overdrive made it extremely attractive for recruiting and sponsor demonstrations, because it is very easy to explain to the high schoolers and the the sponsors how difficult it is to play basketball NASCARstyle. As soon as they see the ball, they can see that designing the robot is not too simple or "lame" as some people see it.

As for the game itself, I think it was great and very invigoratingly enervating.:yikes:

Re: Thoughts on Overdrive
 

I generally really liked Overdrve. This is my rookie year so i can only compare it to a couple of videos i saw from last years but i believe that Overdrive's greatest advantage, for drivers viewers and everyone- is that there was always movement of the robots, and that made it really exiting. i believe that the fact that a robot made points of "driving straight and turning left" was what made the game so exiting to watch.

As people already said- the worst thing was the penalties.

All in all it was a great game.