[Green Potato]

The issue that I see in this game is not that the excitement wasn't there to begin with, but that it's not picking up pace like it should. The game is getting more boring as time passes. In the earlier regionals, 6-stacks were much more rare, strategy was still a hurdle to overcome in terms of whether to go for co-op, and as I saw in the stands, people were excited. We went to a Week 1 regional, and even though our robot didn't perform quite as well as we hoped, I can say with confidence that a huge proportion of the kids that went to the event had fun and stuck around.

Fast forward to the later events. We're not seeing any bigger scores in terms of value per stack (aka 6 stack with can and noodle is still the max, better teams at this points just mean more said stacks), and many of the kids attending have already been in a competition. At Virginia, our second competition, I could tell by the look on some of our scouts' faces that they would rather count the ceiling tiles than scout yet another match. Strategy is much better-known, as there is no real defense, and people can see who's likely going to take home the blue banners. Sure, there are exciting moments especially in the finals, as with any FIRST game, but this one just isn't quite as good in terms of the whole enchilada. Championships will inevitably be exciting, and more teams will make elims than ever, but it may not be quite as good as previous years. That, and it's not a good spectator sport. We've beaten the dead horse already on that.

Overall, although this year was an interesting engineering challenge and fun to watch at first, I am likely not going to miss this game.