[flightofone]

I'm surprised so many teams can actually accomplish what they do from scratch. We totally miscalculated the amount of time we needed to put into the pre-season and build season.

Being a rookie team with no experienced drivers, builders, programmers, or mentors, we tried KISS. Luckily the game design allowed us to quickly discard trying to do anything with the game pieces, but still be interesting. Even with KISS, we only got one of our two major goals in the time allotted, the ramp. The drive train was a disaster.

This game is very complex and subtle, and the design decisions are hard to get right. Even experienced teams seem to have miscalculated the need for speedy, firm/angled game-piece control, and the need for positioning under heavy defensive pressure either with an extendible arm or a drive train with low gear that can push them into position.

There is a wealth of information on everything except manipulators on this web site, so we are looking forward to anything you can contribute to that. Next year maybe we can figure out how to arm ourselves.