[Donut]

Originally Posted by Ian Curtis

I think FIRST Frenzy is now old enough that the large proportion of FRC has forgotten about it. Per Mark McLeod, the mean FRC team is only 4.4 years old, and the median team is almost certainly even younger. Even the high school students during FIRST Frenzy are probably starting to reach the point in their careers where they may have enough other time commitments that they don't mentor teams anymore.

I agree wholeheartedly. Just as anecdotal evidence I know of only 1 other student who was on 498 in 2004 that is still involved in FIRST, and only 2 of our mentors from that season are still involved.

I think a replay of some elements of FIRST Frenzy would be awesome. A big key to that game is that the end game is worth a lot of points (10 scored balls equivalent per robot) and that the end game is shared, which made it almost impossible for all robots to score it. The only shared end game since then is Lunacy where either alliance could score the super cells. This made for interesting tactics because some alliances would go for the end game as soon as possible since it could deny their opponents the end game bonus. Our elimination alliance used this tactic at least once, hanging 2 robots and then only making 3 of your human player shots still scored 115 which was hard to overcome if your opponents had no room to hang due to your robot positioning. However hanging early runs the risk that your now un-defended opponents go crazy and put up 150 in ball points.

I totally understand why a shared end game would have been a horrible idea for many recent games, but I do wish that competitive element would be bright back.