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1. I second the idea of posting an updated manual each week which reflects the changes imposed by the team updates, perhaps with cross-outs and underlines.
This is how congress updates bills, universities update governance documents, the military updates mil specs, etc.
2. FIRST should release the "robot" section of the game in the pre-season. They should stabilize on a set of construction rules which vary only a little bit each year. This year's robot rules were the most sensible that I have seen, especially the flow chart, forbidden hardware, etc.
Since Dean said that the competition was not supposed to be fair, what's the problem with letting us know in advance what materials and sources we can use?
I think some of the grumpiness this year occurred because such substantial changes were made to all aspects of the game. It's amazing that they got as much right as they did.
3. FIRST needs to do more extensive play testing before the season begins. Because they feel the need to have a completely different game each year, they cannot achieve a balance from one year to the next. For instance, if they replayed 2002's game, they would have allocated different points to the goals, dealt with file cards, been definitive on tether bots, etc. This replayed game would be more balanced.
FIRST should stabilize on game field artifacts. More teams will be able to manipulate bins after this year than do it this year. If FIRST wants to see effective bin manipulation by most teams in the competitions, it needs to let us see them more than once.
Although changing things around makes for a better engineering competition, it makes for a less spectator friendly competition.
4. FIRST should return to soccer balls or basket balls. We have done numerous demos in the off-season with all of our different bots. The soccer ball shooter -always- gets people fired up. The other robots are just curiosities.
5. The group who designed this year's game deserve high praise for pulling off such a lot of changes with as few problems as have arisen. Despite criticisms, this has been a very good build season.
6. If FIRST wants to distinguish itself from other robotics competitions, it should reconsider the 4v0 strategy.
The scrimages I have seen so far this year, and many of last year's matches, look like chaos. In 4v0, you could at least tell what the teams were trying to accomplish.
7. FIRST should do away with score multipliers. You should get your score if you win. You should get your score if you lose.
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