Re: 2010 Lesson Learned: The Positive
 

The game this year was phenomenal. I didn't like it at first, but Breakaway definitely grew on me. The combination of soccer balls flying across the field, fantastic defense, and last second elevation attempts made it exciting for almost everyone involved.

10 Qualification Matches at the Championship was HUGE. I applaud FIRST for making this change, and I hope they improve upon it in the Future.

The overall increase in Qualification Matches from 2009 was great. It's nice to know that we're getting a few more matches for our entrance fee.

More lax pneumatic rules need to stick around for next year, they opened some interesting design possibilities.

Wednesday Uncrate and Inspection at the Championship was awesome. I'd love to see this expand to open pits on Wednesday afternoon next year.

Re: 2010 Lesson Learned: The Positive
 

Classmate PC

Turn-key camera view "window", diagnostics page w/ error message log for trouble-shootling, lightweight and relatively durable hardware.

Increased battery life and shorter boot-up time are areas for improvement, though.

Re: 2010 Lesson Learned: The Positive
 

The perfect game. Discussed elsewhere.

Dean's List is a good concept, maybe next year it will be done right but I'm glad it exists.

My driver station never exploded this year.

Increase in qualification matches at every event I went to was a very very good thing. Thursday matches at Championship was awesome, I'm so glad they did that. My team played 33 matches at 2 events. I love that.

The easy alliance identification was very nice and spectator friendly.

Re: 2010 Lesson Learned: The Positive
 

Starting qualifications on Thursday allowed more time for meaningful field scouting too.

Re: 2010 Lesson Learned: The Positive
 

The more I watched the game, the more I liked it. Team Update 16's tweaks made a big difference, particularly with ball penetration.

I did enjoy having to build something different (and likely tougher)--a flat-game drivetrain had to make some real sacrifices to keep its status.

Scoring was a fair bit easier to follow, and I thought autonomous was mostly well-rewarded.

I think playing Thursday in Atlanta is a good thing, as is getting ten matches in.

No-update updates worked well, even if they were the butt of a few jokes.

I also appreciate Bill Miller reaching out a bit more, both on his blog and on Twitter--even if he can't necessarily respond to every question or fix every problem, keeping the human element in the FRC is important. Keep it up!

Allowing five CIMs was just right this year. I wouldn't mind getting three or four in the kit, but at least they're readily available.

Loosening the compressor rules was a nice olive branch, albeit a bit of an exercise in futility since nobody seemed to make a commercially-available compressor that matched the specs (let alone provided teams some design choices, such as duty cycle versus weight). Still, I liked the freedom in pneumatics rules.

Hopefully things keep rolling forward for 2011!

Re: 2010 Lesson Learned: The Positive
 

The red and blue bumpers are made of win. It is so easy to determine the alliances. It also makes the competition look much more professional, overall.

Please note that the white letters and even the yellow numbers were very easy to read. It also helped just having the numbers on the bumpers without the team names and/or logos. Very clean.

Many of us grumbled (and are still grumbling) about losing the ability to personalize the bumpers but - as cool as those are, individually - the red and blue bumpers give a classy classic look.

Love it. This from the purple tie-dye freak.

Jane

Re: 2010 Lesson Learned: The Positive
 

A couple things.

In Atlanta, we stayed pretty much on schedule the whole way through on Archimedes. Good job to everyone working the field.

I really loved having all the "other things" in Atlanta besides just the competition. Boeing, NASA, Lockheed, CIA, PTC, Autodesk, and all the vendors made it more than just a big regional. There was a lot more to discover and I hope this gets bigger and better.

No driver station failures for us this year! That blue box from last year was just bad.


I think the game was better in general this year compared to last. To me, it was more fun to watch and to design for.

Re: 2010 Lesson Learned: The Positive
 

You might check with the Cheesy Poofs (254) or RAWC (968). I don't know the manufacturer/model number, but they found a smaller compressor than the KOP version that meets the specs.

Re: 2010 Lesson Learned: The Positive
 

I liked the bumpers. We started day one with a design and we have bumpers that come off and on in under 5 mins, a few minutes slower than a battery change.

My personal lesson learned was first week competitors are crazy. We did FLR this year and didn't twink to the first week part until mid-Feb when we figured out that it was going to be a non-stop effort to be ready with a robot, a travel plan, a Chairmans award submission, etc, etc, etc. by 3 March.

Hats off to you that pull it off every year! We learned we love Rochester, love their northern neighbors from Canada, but we won't be back for week 1. See you for Ruckus in the fall!

Re: 2010 Lesson Learned: The Positive
 

A game that truly required cooperation with your alliance partners.

A game where the design challenges were easy to underestimate -- all of them -- and interesting to plan for.

This year was indeed the hardest fun that my students have ever had!

Re: 2010 Lesson Learned: The Positive
 

We wouldn't have been able to make weight without it, either.

Re: 2010 Lesson Learned: The Positive
 

Would you mind posting specs?

Thanks!

Re: 2010 Lesson Learned: The Positive
 

The colored bumpers were definitely a good idea, especially for scouting.
I really liked the concept of the game this year. Scoring was nice and simple (so much better to scout than last year!), the task provided a good challenge, and it was definitely one of FIRST's best. It really required teamwork between teams on each alliance because robots had to be put in the right zone based on their capabilities. It was also interesting to watch and held my attention until the end, the bonus 20 seconds definitely produced the most excitement and kept everyone screaming after the matches. It was also much easier for spectators to understand.
Also, the increase in qualification matches was great. Practice matches all day always seemed to be a drag, plus it offered more opportunities to scout the robots and see more of what they can do.
Overall, it was a vast improvement from last year and I wonder what FIRST is gonna come out with next year to top this one! :p

Re: 2010 Lesson Learned: The Positive
 

I liked:

1) The ability to freely choose between Victors and Jaguars.

2) The fact that they kept the core of the control system (cRIO) for more than just one year (although I think I still prefer the IFI system).

3) The appropriate loosening of the pneumatics rules.

4) The relatively low number of software updates during the season.

5) That the KOP still contains almost everything required to build a moving base.

6) The new "inspiration video" shown at the CMP (the revised "sport of the mind"/soccer ball->brain video). Best..video..ever, especially when played at volume. I could watch that twenty times in a row (and as soon as it's online, I will).

Re: 2010 Lesson Learned: The Positive
 

Loved:
-Bag And Tag (no more panicked crate-building on the last build day)
-Seeding system (especially after week 1 touch-up)
--It dis-incentivized playing defense
--It ranked good robots accurately
--It made close matches really matter
--It made it possible to recover from 1 or 2 unlucky matches
-Exciting game, especially in finals
-Common game piece
-Autonomous being easy enough for everyone to attempt
-Dean's List award - after so many years with an award for mentors, it seems strange they only thought of having a student award now
-Bumper Colors! After years of dealing with tiny lights, flags, and giant spinning lights, I think this is the clearest way to express a team's alliance color. It doesn't require any electronics, it doesn't suck power, it is visible all the way round, it is pretty much perfect.

Liked:
-Autonomous strategically mattering (really could have used a bonus to make it matter more)
-Endgame bonus - having 1 or 2 robots hang could decide matches, but this really could have been worth more

Disliked:
-There's another thread for that!