[Joe Johnson]

I agree that FIRST has many rules compared to various fighting robot competitions. I would like it if the rules could be simplified, but I will understand if they are not.

Most of the rule complications fall under either safety or fairness heading.

As to the safety, I would prefer that FIRST had some general principles they put forward along with some recommended guidelines. I think we would be farther ahead in this case because many unsafe practices are not covered by the legalistic rule book and also many good ideas that can be safely implemented are forbidden. Yet, in our lawsuit happy world, it will be very difficult to relax many of these rules.

As to fairness, there are no completely fair rules or completely fair and consistant set of rules. This year's change to a more open material list was a step in the right direction. I would argue for even more openness in this area. I would especially like to see more open rules on motors (perhaps allowing teams to buy more or to use a wider variety of motors from a given list) and more open rules on pneumatics (perhaps allowing for larger storage tanks, more valves, more types of valves, more actuators and more types of actuators).

But, largely these issues are window dressing. The MAIN issue before us (which I believe is one of the keys to the ultimate success of FIRST, specifically, changing the culture by GETTING ON TV) will not be addressed by changing the robot construction rules but by getting a better game.

I know that FIRST really tried this year to make an exciting, TV friendly game. Let's not sugar coat it: they failed.

Bottom line: Stacking is hard. Knocking down is easy. King-of-the-Hill was the Name-of-the-Game (or should have been). This year's game rewarded pushing too much, rewarded building stacks too little and then wrapped it all in an Elimation Round Format that all but ensured anti-climactic endings.

I repeat what I have said many times: FIRST is running down a razor blade. It is a very close thing whether we will grow fast enough catch the eye of mass media in order to make the difference we all want before we will crash and burn, imploding on ourselves before we make a lasting impact.

This season was another lost opportunity.

Perhaps next year.

Joe J.