[Tom Line]

I'm going to try to take a high level approach to this:

Things gone right:
1. Hybrid was worth the correct amount of points to make it important
2. It was nice to see the "balancing" of offense and defense. Last year was a very heavy defensive game. The year prior, and excellent shooter could somewhat negate a strong defense.
3. Drivetrains. It was nice to see speed as a part of the game. It taught me some things about efficient drive trains that I didn't know before - primarily because in the past you could gear a trans low enough and the fine points didn't matter because of the amount of power (like battery life....).
4. The weight of the ball. This pushed the systems to the limits. Many of the higher end bots were dieing in 2-3 minutes due to battery power.

Deltas, or things that could be improved for next year:
1. It was extremely difficult to replicate field conditions to test hybrid remotes. We had a remote that would work from over 50 feet away every single time in practice and in the pits, but out on the field we missed signals from less that 10 feet away.

2. Simple game, very complex rules set, and very difficult for referees to call. I'm not sure how it could have been improved, but the demand on the referees to fairly call matches was unfair to them, and resulted in many penalty-decided matches (and non-calls that also decided matches).

3. Lack of tasks that were not complimentary. Last year had a very well seperated couple tasks. I would even look forward to tasks that require small detachable robots, etc. It's time to de-homogonize the robot designs a bit. This year the goals complemented eachother (speed + hurdling). Perhaps this could have been made more interesting by having a 200 lb weight that had to be carried to gain lap points, but they were equal to the hurdle points if carried. Opposed goals (like the ramps and score) lead to more widely varied robot goals, and more interesting design solutions.