I'm with dhoizner!!!!!
I was totally sucked in by the little "production" that occured just before the finals at Nationals last year. Consequently I was REALLLLLLY looking forward to dealing with three different colored target lights this year. How cool would that have been?
OK, I guess you don't have to look at my bio to see I'm a programming mentor
I think the actual robot building part of FIRST Robotics should try to excite the budding mechanical, electrical and software engineers. At the basic level, anyone who can assemble the KOP can play and have fun. But once you get past that level, all three of the engineering deciplines should be tested. This means better structure, beter power and smarter controls.
Since I'm also a First LEGO League coach, I have to switch from FLL, where the entire competition is "autonomous", to FRC, where we only get 10 or 15 seconds.... High School is meant to be harder than Middle School... right
Seriously, seeing your robot perfom it's assigned task in autonomous is the ultimate "we did it" experience. That's where robots are going... right? space exploration, under-sea exploration... military robots.... it's all about autonomous operation....
I personally thought Aim High was great. A good Autonomous score gave you a good edge, and then being able to climb the ramps at the end iced the cake. Structure, power and control.
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So I'd like to see a challenging Autonomous mode with a couple of levels of bonus (like with the low and high goals). Then have a different bonus for a mechanically capable (powerfull) robot.
Finally, make these bonuses self contained (without relying on other robots). Cooperation is great, but since alliances selections are random, there is no real opportunity for "actual" design collaboration. It's even worse when you don't have an alliance partner. (FLL had the same problem with the Space Elevator this year)