[Gabriel]

I wonder if maybe the tournament style of FIRST isn't the best way of going about it. Each match is only about 2 minutes so its difficult for a spectator to get involved and its very very difficult to accurately figure out which robot is best. The problem isn't necessarily the scoring system so much as the fact that teams have to compete AGAINST each other so we don't get to judge each robot on its own merits all the time. Maybe FIRST should switch to the kind of system we see in many olympic sports, there would be one common challenge and groups of teams would compete in heats. Say, the challenge was to autonomously pick up multicolored balls and deposit them in different spots according to their color just to pick a dumb idea. The overall top 8 teams would go on. It wouldn't be as interesting strategically (or maybe it would be depending on how the game was set up), but it would certainly avoid all the problems with scoring systems, coercion etc. as well as making it easier for a team to practice and the overall result would reflect the performance of the robot, not the performance of the alliance.

I don't know if I like the idea, but its certainly interesting.