[alopex_rex]

When I was talking with the other seniors on my team about this year, we all agreed that we would like our last game to be something different, from the last three throw-things-into-things games. And we certainly got what we wanted. Recycle Rush is really a fundamentally different sort of game from the ones we've grown used to.

The lack of robot interaction frees up some different design possibilities. For example: while I've been on it, my team has always designed a tank drive, with little consideration of other possibilities, because we feel the traction and power of tank drive outweighs the maneuverability of mecanum, holonomic, etc. We want to try other drive trains, but practicality always leads us to choose tank drive early on. But this year, now that we don't have to worry about pushing matches with other robots, we're strongly considering using another kind of drive train. Will I miss robot-robot interactions? Yes. But going without them opens up new opportunities, and of course lets us simplify the rulebook. (We were watching the kickoff video with a lot of lag, and we skipped forward to the live feed just as Woodie Flowers was putting a bumper in the recycling bin. There were many "whaaaaaaaaaaat"s.)

The new ranking system changes how you think about strategy. No longer is taking a point away from the other alliance equivalent to giving one to yourself. And the win-loss system is kind of artificial, strongly reflecting alliance composition. With a points system, teams' qualifying points will more accurately reflect their ability. But at the same time, focusing on accumulating points may be a more positive experience for struggling teams than accumulating losses. Also, we have the return of coopertition in games, which I've been waiting for ever since 2012. (The new ranking creates some weird dynamics though. You're not really competing with the other alliance in any meaningful way--sure you're competing with them in the rankings, but the same is true for your alliance partners. There's no motivation to hurt, or even not help, the "opposing" alliance.)

It's kind of frustrating to see people already complaining about how they don't like the game and it will be bad for such and such reason. We literally just learned what the game was today. None of us has seen it played. How about we be excited for designing robots now, and once we've all seen a competition or two we can talk about the spectator experience of Recycle Rush.

If FIRST decided that every year from now on would be split-field with no interaction, and with ranking that ignored win-loss, I wouldn't be happy. But I don't want to do a sports-y pieces-into-targets game every year either. Kudos to FIRST for shaking things up. All in all Recycle Rush looks like a fun challenge, and I can barely wait for tomorrow's meeting.