[DanDon]

I, personally, am of the opinion that the only part of this competition that is really "robotics" is the first 15 seconds, and that that should be one of the main objectives of every game. The rest of the time, its RC car time, with us playing with overcomplicated remote control cars.

Maybe something like vex last year where there is a separate autonomous game that is weighted as much as the operator control game. I think that the best bonus that could've been given to autonomous this year, is that if you put a keeper on, you get a tube to the left, right, above, and underneath the one you placed, so if you place one on the middle row, you get 4 tubes, if you place on the top or bottom, you get 3 tubes.

Because it seems like this year's autonomous challenge is relatively hard, there should be a bigger bonus.

Now, sum people are saying that the bonus gets bigger if you put more tubes on, however that is a big conditional, and if you are stuck with no alliance partners that are capable of scoring, and you have 2 robots playing defense on you the whole match, keeping you to 2-4 tubes, the current bonus does not really give you anything too worthwhile.

I loved the fact that last year's autonomous was so decisive because it emphasized what I think is one of the most important parts of this year's competition, a part that seems depressingly absent this year.

/steps off soapbox