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Unread 26-03-2012, 15:02
i3randon i3randon is offline
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AKA: Brandon
FRC #3418 (RoboRiot)
Team Role: Mentor
 
Join Date: Jan 2012
Rookie Year: 2006
Location: Green Bay
Posts: 2
i3randon is an unknown quantity at this point
Re: What do you think of this year's game?

My short answer is the game was great but the ranking system and coopertition was not.

We were the only team to go undefeated going into our 11th match at the Wisconsin Regional. We finished up 10-1 but only got 8th place. I understand why, I just feel that there wasn't any glory in winning. For this reason I dislike the coopertition idea since it was so easy to help/hurt your opponents as the qualifying score was so close.

Changing gears a bit, I have noticed some aspects of the game that presented different challenges. When I joined FIRST in 2006, for Aim High, there were no safe zones or barriers to cross over. There was defense, true pushing and shoving defense. This year it was so difficult to play defense many teams didn't try. I like to show students that being an offensive player can be as important as defense but that simply wasn't the case this year.

Also in 2006 the goals to shoot into were not as hard to shoot for. I really liked the baskets as this required a great deal of accuracy in terms of power and trajectory. This provided students a look into one of the most basic physics/calculus problems, simple 2D trajectory.

One thing that has been mentioned was balls under the bridges. We anticipated this and could actually get up and onto a bridge that had a ball stuck under it. However, not all teams could. This was interesting because we had to change our strategy a bit because balancing alone wasn't worth nearly as much as with another robot, same team or not.

Overall, how can anyone not have fun with FIRST? As always it is a blast!
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