[Jared Russell]

Interaction between players on opposing sides is what makes most team sports so much fun to watch, because every match is different. Decisions need to be made on the fly, there are tradeoffs to every strategy, and outgunned teams always have at least some chance of pulling off an upset (aside from hoping for their opponent to screw up).

This year, there was almost no interaction between opposing sides, outside of noodle throwing and the can race.

I don't think every FIRST game needs to have bumper-crushing physical contact between robots to be interesting. I do think that every FIRST game needs a significant level of interaction between the opposing sides in order to be interesting.