[galewind]

My thoughts on week 1:

From a "designing" and "playing" perspective, I really think FIRST got this game right, FOR US. It truly allowed teams of all levels and capabilities to be useful in many capacities. Like FIRST Frenzy (2004), there were many different opportunities to score, but unlike it, there was no one powerhouse move, with the exception of the ramp for the 25-point bonus, which often required cooperation. This provides all teams with the ability to make an effective robot, and if a team knew their limits and built accordingly, they could make an effective machine that didn't have to shoot balls.

I do agree with a previous poster, though, that allowing the autonomous-winning team to go on defense first is VERY one-sided. This is largely due to the fact that a alliance that wins auton 30 - 27 (10 balls made in vs 9) now has the chance to get even more balls AND gets a 10-point bonus. That's QUITE lopsided, and as I mentioned back at our kickoff, it is critical to win it.

That said, there are some awesome new programming opportunities to get autonomous working better, and thanks largely to Kevin Watson, I actually did see quite a few teams trying to get the camera module working. We got it working in our pits toward the end of competition, but didn't want to risk using it out on the field when we were getting close to the end. We're looking forward to testing it more in Atlanta, though, and hope to see more teams use it like 1403, 103, and 25 (just to name a few) did.

For untrained spectators, unfamiliar with FIRST, it is more difficult to see what's going on and know what's happening. This does take some of the appreciation of the game away, but seeing lots of balls flying and robots tipping can still be amusing.

Once again, having a first-week regional means having an enormous amount of issues with the field. This has happened before, but as T. Hoffman said, it's awful that first week regionals are often guinea pigs for FIRST fields. I pray that they can come up with a new system for doing this in the future.

All in all, I really enjoy this game, and while it's not as spectator friendly as Triple Play, it opened many more doors for teams, and I like seeing a variety of robots again!