[Donut]

This game has the best manual I have seen in years, probably ever. It really does not take that long to read through most of the manual (the important sections total to only 50 pages or so) and the new viewing methods such as the smart phone app make it so much easier to pull up at any time.

Getting across the field is going to be hard I believe; a lot harder than my initial impression. I thought at first that the bridges would be a nice quick way across, but after watching the field walkthrough videos on the FIRST youtube page I think the bridge is going to be more difficult to cross than it looks (for all the students out there I encourage you to run the numbers based on the test that FIRST gives for making sure your bridge behaves properly. With some torque calculations you can find it is not a trivial weight required to lower the bridge down to get on it). Add the bump that is rather large and teams with a poor drivetrain really have no shot at getting more scoring elements.

Also, was anyone else less than impressed by the option of using Kinect to drive? I think the cool factor of it is through the roof, but from a usefulness perspective I don't see how it provides any benefit beyond regular autonomous.