[Pault]

This was a game designed to be played at a world championships level. When we got there, it was awesome. At championships eliminations, you were almost guaranteed to have a good inbounder and trusser that will get the ball to the finisher in a decent amount of time. Sure, some were faster and more reliable than others, and defense made a difference, but there was no anguishing over a ball that is stuck in the back half of the field for half the match. And so what happened was now the finishers got to really show off what they were made of. To some extend, we were back to where really good robots could dominate. And I was inspired to see a showdown between 2 amazing finishers, 254 and 1114. Because they built amazing robots that really shone above the rest. That is what made champs awesome for me.

I don't think FRC was ready for this kind of game though. There are still too many box-of-rocks on wheels at the regional level, and nowhere near enough teams with the capacity to shoot the ball. Maybe if they made the ball smaller so that more teams would be able to handle it, then this game would have been OK. But even then, I think we would be better off just going back to the days of every robot doing their own thing and giving every robot the chance to show off what they brought to the competition (i.e. being able to use your shooter even if it is really inaccurate). If FIRST is insistent on coopertition, something like 2012 would be awesome; coopertition is valuable but not the only way to win, and almost any robot could do it.