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Unread 20-04-2008, 15:02
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FRC #0842 (Falcon Robotics)
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Re: Lesson Learned: The Negative

Overall, I have to say that 2008 was a pretty impressive year for FIRST. The game was quite fun to watch most of the time, and it was perhaps even more fun being the one driving (it is, in my opinion). Sadly, I cannot really comment on the Championship in Atlanta, as our team did not qualify to attend, but I can comment on the game.

The first aspect of FIRST Overdrive that could have been improved is eliminating the need for referees to determine a match. This year, I saw a lot of stress being put on the refs, who had to make split-second judgment calls very frequently during a match. These can include:

Did the robot pass over the line?
Was the ball touching the robot as it rolled over the line?
Did the ball touch the robot on its way down from a hurdle?
Is the robot impeding traffic?
Is the robot interfering with a hurdle?
Did the team E-stop before they fell over?
Did the robot intrude outside of the other robot's bumper zone?
Etc. etc. etc.

This year, the refs had an incredibly difficult and stressful job, in that they were usually the ones who decided the fate of the teams on the field. I would suggest that next year, FIRST make the game less stressful on the referees, such as having an automatic scoring system of some kind. One thing I liked about the 07 game is that everything was scored and calculated at the end of the game, giving the refs plenty of time to deliberate and make decisions on the outcome of the match. The 06 game also did this very well, with an automatic scoring system which worked pretty reliably (at least, much more reliably than a human forced to make so many decisions so quickly). Overall, this is my top suggestion for FIRST next year when designing a game.

Obviously, the second major problem people had with FIRST Overdrive was the importance of penalties in deciding a match. And this was quite true. A ten point penalty can pretty much undo the work of a single lap-bot for the whole match. I believe that this year's game was the first game where teams could actually have an average negative score, suggesting that they would be more helpful if they didn't even show up for a match. This, plainly, is just not right. These kinds of situations where robots can actually hurt an alliance makes everybody feel bad, including the team that incurred the penalties. I won't elaborate any more than I (or others) already have, but I will say that penalties were an incredibly controversial subject this year.

So, once again, I really did have a great time with this year's game. I hope that FIRST takes some of these suggestions into account, so that we can make it more enjoyable for everybody.
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