[EricH]

I gotta agree with Dez. Great concept. Lousy execution.

However, the last time FIRST had one of those was the sudden spring of the Dean's List last build season (I'm not including the Minibot here). They got the bugs worked out for this year, or at least I haven't heard of a single issue there. (Even last year, the main issues were time and the mentors not wanting the students to know who was being nominated in some cases, but needing to use STIMS to submit. Both were fixed easily before Kickoff this year.)

When FIRST has a great concept that is poorly executed, at least in some views, they change it to make it even better. The original alliance selection system had unlimited declines (and no elimination backups, and you only knew that these X teams will be on the field until 2 minutes before your match). The 3-team elimination selection was originally non-serpentine. The last time there was any form of minibot, it was optional and tethered to the main robot (2002, and you don't want to know how many entanglement issues were called/not called on those).

I think that if they learn from the main complaints this year (namely, teams couldn't plan for it due to late-ish notice, plus the fields moving with no reason given) and address those, there is great potential for this to be really, really, really great. The great unknown is whether they will learn from those errors--I think they will learn. The only questions will be: How well do they learn, and who's playing?