[Qbot2640]

I am looking forward to using the off season, and this game, to train our incoming freshmen and a few newer veterans that didn't get involved in the build this year...we'll build a second robot as an engineering challenge. That's the only real strength of this year's game.

As for the game itself - I will be glad to say goodbye. While marginally more exciting at the end it was still horribly boring compared to previous years. I particularly hated the treatment that autonomous received. All three of either totes or containers was a bigger challenge than the average team could accomplish, and even if a team did accomplish that, the point values were too low (all three totes plus all three containers should have been a game-changer...that was impressive).

As a FIRST program / team membership promotional tool let's compare: The last three seasons added to our robot repertoire (1) a robot that shoots frisbees about 70 feet with incredible accuracy, (2) a robot that throws a huge brightly colored ball 20 feet with similar accuracy, and (3) a robot that stacks tote bins and recycling containers. If you were a corporate official or a middle-schooler...which would impress you?