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Re: FVC GDC wants your feedback
I only attended one FVC event this year, although I think it counts for something that the one event was the Championship. Here's what I thought:
Autonomous mode: VASTLY improved upon Half-Pipe Hustle. I didn't see much line-following, but the field was configured to provide plenty of dead-reckoning or encoder-based possibilities. Lots of great plays to run.
Teleoperated mode: No complaints here. Good clean fun.
Game Objects: Perhaps balls are becoming a bit too common in FVC--I know a few teams essentially showed up with their center-goal Half-Pipe Hustle robot. (That's an exaggeration.) Let's see something a little different next season--maybe still balls, but make them particularly different in use or nature from past seasons' balls.
Oh, and the Atlas Ball did sometimes make following the action a bit tricky...but such is the case with any large opaque object.
Goals/Scoring: The Atlas Ball, in the end, seemed a bit too weighty--pin that with one robot, have the other score some in the high goal, you win. Throwing the ball out was a tricky but big move, one slightly hampered by the driver placement. (I would frequently find myself waving back drivers so the ball could go either in or out.) It was nice to have the high goal be significantly higher than the Half-Pipe Hustle goal, but something different might be nice for next season. The platform and bar were a nice setup. I wish the turntable was a little bit crazier, but it was still a neat change.
Tournament Structure: Championship match thinness aside, I've got nothing much. I do prefer this ranking structure over the Autonomous-mixed-in arrangement of Half-Pipe Hustle.
Other Ideas: One I've been jonesing to see in FVC: robot-actuated field elements. We saw a bit of this in the high-level play of Half-Pipe Hustle, where teams would use their robots to empty the auto-loaders of the loader-dependent opponents. I'm envisioning some sort of lift or conveyor driven by a small Vex wheel, just to ensure maximum replication ability.
I'd also like to see some electronic scoring--the bumper switches in the Vex kit seem to be perfect as a target for teams to hit either with robots or game pieces.
Lastly, the robot-as-scoring-object approach of Rack 'N Roll was just good clean fun. If that can be integrated into an FVC game without coming off as a total rip-off, I imagine it'd be fun.
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William "Billfred" Leverette - Gamecock/ Jessica Boucher victim/ Marketing & Sales Specialist at AndyMark
2004-2006: FRC 1293 (D5 Robotics) - Student, Mentor, Coach
2007-2009: FRC 1618 (Capital Robotics) - Mentor, Coach
2009-2013: FRC 2815 (Los Pollos Locos) - Mentor, Coach - Palmetto '09, Peachtree '11, Palmetto '11, Palmetto '12
2010: FRC 1398 (Keenan Robo-Raiders) - Mentor - Palmetto '10
2014-2016: FRC 4901 (Garnet Squadron) - Co-Founder and Head Bot Coach - Orlando '14, SCRIW '16
2017-: FRC 5402 (Iron Kings) - Mentor
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