[Peter Matteson]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

The teams who work out of a classroom or meet less than 20 hours per week are really going to struggle.

Is there any wayto be competitive at this without meeting every single day until midnight.

My team does not meet as a class, has never met every day, and only occasionly meets late when needed. I would say we are always competitive. We have no intention of changing our meeting schedule now.*

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

Has FIRST ever made a game that was easy to do?

Yes. 2008 and 2011 had extremely simple tasks that were required to score points. 2011 being 4 years after the previous tube game, with a behind the design book being available every team should have been able to score 2-3 tubes a match.

From my point of view 2010 was harder. the three challenges of the bump, possesing the ball and hanging that year were harder as a combined group. The low hanging fruit way to play this year, human loading, dumping then doing a 10 point hang will be viable for most teams and seed at most events.

The robot that does everything may not actually be viable this year due to space connstraints. It also may not be necessary. To me this is like 2004 where it was almost impossible to hang, hold the doubler ball and collect small balls on 1 robot. In the end only the best teams did it all, while other teams figured out one of those tasks was unnecessary if you played the right way.

*Disclaimer: I'm not heavily involved this year, after 11 years I have too much going on this year to spend much time with the team.