[AllenGregoryIV]

Lets see how wrong I can be.

- How much will the average scores increase over the course of the season?
At some of the first week events we will see matches regularly without any successful minibots. Meaning the scores will be in the 12-25 range. In eliminations that is going to rise to 80-100 range for the eventual regional winning alliance. As the season gets longer and minibots get better rarely will we see matches with less than 50 points being scored to win.

- How effective will defense be?
Not very, defense could have been a very good strategy but there are way too many rules that limit it this year. The pinning rule by itself makes defense very tricky because once an opponent touches anything teams are going to back away in fear.

- Will alliances use feeder bots & hangers, or will it be every team for itself?
Until the tube throwing stops feeder bots are not needed.

- Will tubes be fed through the slot or thrown?
Even if they are not thrown in to the open feeding through the slot will be very slow. I imagine teams will throw them to the end of their lane instead of to the middle of the field.

- What will dominate - Grippers or Roller Claws? Rotating arms or Elevators?
Roller Claws for sure!!
Arms and elevators it depends on who builds them, 148 has a 4 bar arm and 118 has an elevator both are amazing machines and are going to do really well. My team built a roller claw on an elevator that we think will work very well for how we are planning to play the game. I will say that the full double jointed arms are going to be very challenging for teams like they are every year.

- Will floor loading be as important as many think?
Will be make or break for teams. If you can't floor load passing tubes get's way harder and you can't get thrown tubes.

- Will the minibots define the winners, or will their influence decrease as more teams get them working?
Influence will decrease even into the elimination matches of week one because you will see 4 up in several matches.

- How will minibots develop? Will they all be similar by Championship?
There will be some similar designs but due to deployment some teams won't be able to change their minibot too much.

- How would you like to see the game played?
As it will be, with people adapting strategies and making their robots do things they didn't design for to try to gain an advantage. I love to see an alliance figure out how to beat a team in a novel way.