Quote:
Originally Posted by Justin M.
I honestly don't like it. It should be a game, this is just pure human strategy. The robots will be very simple so the only thing setting apart team's is their strategist.
FIRST has always been a sport, more or less, where you essentially "build" the player. Last years game was the perfect example of this, as well as the year before that. The games were based mostly on robot performance, features, design, and a little bit of driver skill - which is what it should be. This is a ROBOTICS competition, isn't it? The robot should be doing the work and playing the game for the most part.
This year everybody's robot will more or less be the same - there is no room for different designs. Your robot either needs to be able to score, or push the scorers. The rest is all human based strategy (i.e. where to put the tubes).
Aim High, and Triple Play, were possibly the best games ever created by FIRST, IMO. They allowed many robot designs to work, and were just $@#$@#$@#$@# fun to play. This year's challenge is essentially playing 8x3 tic tac toe with no diagonals, and you need to do this with a robot....like I said this is all going to lie on human strategy, unlike last year where the robot had to score as many points as it could (letting the robot do the work!).
This is my junior year in HS - next year will be the last FIRST competition I compete in as a student and direct part of the team. I will be in charge of everything next year - I really hope that FIRST comes up with something better than this year's game for my final year (I'll come back as a mentor though!).
|
I couldnt agree with you more and I would also like to add one more point...
When I joined FIRST, the game was Triple Play. I explained the game to a lot of people who werent involved and they all greeted it with the same neutral response, which was something like "its cool, i guess". Even after showing them the videos of Triple Play matches there was still something large that was missing when you saw the game if you werent a part of it. But when I showed people the Aim High game, it was universally agreed that the game was "really cool". It was fast paced, it played like a sport, there were great plays (just like sports), it required a game plan, and there were multiple ways to score and be effective.
I am not saying that FIRST should design its games to be "cool" at the expense of being a good challenge. But being that one of the missions of FIRST is to attract people to the organization, it seems to me that designing a fast paced, sport-resembling game would be the best thing. Even as a veteran, who is hardcore into FIRST, I was dissapointed that the game doesnt appear to be as exciting.
I believe the record number of rookie teams is, at least part, due to the fact that Aim High was such a cool game. I could not find one person that would not want to watch the final matches, even if they were the least motivated person on the team.
There has to be a way to keep the same level of excitement and game play as Aim High while adding in new challenges.