[Miss157]

From a student's point of view, one who's only seen three years of competition, I actually really like this game.

I think it kind of changed it up from the previous years. For instance, I don't really think that powerhouse teams are doing as well? Two of my favorite teams are 125 and 126 and I've seen them go all the way, both of them at Boston last year and they weren't as much of a dominating force this year.

Then at WPI, 5122, a rookie team, was a finalist along with two great teams, including 2648, who I've also seen go all the way before.

In addition to the powerhouse teams, in my opinion, not being as much of a dominating force, alliance selection has been really interesting. Now I can't credit all of that to the game because some or most of it may be an increase of scouting on a lot of teams, but it seems that there's a lot more variance in alliance selection, especially with 3rd pick.

In my previous years, at the regionals I attended, it seemed like for 3rd pick 8 would pick the highest seed available, and it would continue with that trend, but that hasn't seemed to have happened, at least not at WPI.

Also, for the one robot breaking and wrecking the whole alliance, there are back-ups. And maybe it's a shift in the game, but it doesn't seem as many are being called, although that is definitely subject to opinion.