Given our team's success last year, this year I had to cope with losing in FIRST for the first time
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That being said, though, I think I got more out of this year than I did last year. Last year, with a senior class of 16, we really didn't need any underclassmen help, at all. This year was completely different, and I got chances to do a lot more things than I did the year before. I worked with the camera a bit, and learned a lot of different programming concepts from that, as well as bits and pieces about electrical, pneumatics, and manufacturing concepts as well. However, the more valuable knowledge that I gained this year was probably not technical:
-Sometimes, we work so hard on these robots that it is hard to see flaws in them. It is hard to cope with losing, and oftentimes the blame goes elsewhere, such as on the refs, or poor alliance pairings. However, sometimes it takes a thing, like not getting picked for eliminations at Philly did for me, for you to truly take a step back and look at what you've done in comparison to everyone else's.
-Everyone else works at least as hard, if not just as hard as you do on your robot.
-Volunteers really put in a ton of time and effort; I know I was personally wiped after a day of volunteering at nationals. I recommend trying it out to all of you, it's a ton of fun.
As for reflection on this game, overall I liked it. Multi-tetra capabilities were unnecessary this year, as we saw no teams that could handle more than one in the final rounds. Simple robots that could cap extremely quickly, and had incredible drive teams, as well as good on-field strategy could take it all very quickly. The tide would often turn extremely quickly in these matches. In one of them, I turned away for a few moments to see a red triple play become a blue one. The tetras were an innovative game object for this year, and field reset was not nearly as tough as it was last year (unless you're relatively short, like me, and trying to grab tetras off the center goal).
-Alex Pelan