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Unread 03-05-2012, 00:39
Andrew Lawrence
 
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Re: 2012 Lessons Learned:The Negative

Having the gamepieces made by more than one place (there were some made in one manufacturer, and some made in another. Balls we bought week 1 were drastically different from balls we bought week 8, and that is after heavy testing of both balls being freshly opened and unused).

That really messed up shooting for most teams.


Replacing balls. While one thinks it's logical to replace old balls with new ones, the new ones were again drastically different than the old ones, resulting in wheeled shooters misfiring almost every time in eliminations. I think a game piece like the balls this year had too much variability for teams to control. Game pieces like the soccer balls in 2010, the moon rocks in 2009 (for the most part), the trackballs of 2008, etc. had little to no variability between them, so going from one to another wouldn't change performance.


Coopertition bridge. Great addition to the game, worth too much. I like the idea of a coop bridge, because working with your opponents is much harder than working with your allies. Because of this, there is a reward. Plus, you have to sacrifice one of your team mates who could spend their time scoring, so the tradeoff seems good enough for the mutual benefit. The part I don't like, however, is how much it decided regionals. I understand it's supposed to be a part of the game, but to go to the point to say that you can loose and still "win" is too far. If you loose, you loose. Don't try and over-glorify winning, and cushion loosing. I think the best solution is to make the coop bridge worth 1 point. Not quite a win, but enough to benefit the winning team a little, and benefit the loosing team for putting a robot up to benefit the other team. Rankings won't be drastically affected, and coopertition will remain a part of the game.


Events. The events, while awesome, are getting too crowded. While the idea of moving to district systems is being talked about, it needs to be done soon. Teams are having trouble getting into regional events. I know personally here in CA we wanted to sign up for Sacramento, and were forced into Central Valley because Sacramento had no room. Not a terrible thing, but as FIRST expands at the exponential rate it does, I think we're going to need to be able to contain those teams as fast and efficiently as possible.


That's all my complaints. No more until next year.

Last edited by Andrew Lawrence : 03-05-2012 at 00:42.
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