[Joe G.]

Overall, I liked overdrive. It was one of the most intense games I have witnessed (I know my rookie year says 2007, but I have watched a competition since 2001.) I agree that it came alive in the elimination rounds.

The sheer impressiveness of seeing the trackballs flying also made the game a great spectator game. The surface simplicity of the rules was also good. I loved the lack of "blindly crashing into things" defense. I hate seeing a box on wheels do nothing but screw up a well thought out machine. This game gave teams that could only move something to do, and in some cases, enough motivation to make lapping in an innovative way a robot's primary function

I may be the only person here who doesn't think that G22 penalties killed the game. Sure, it would have been better without them, but when it comes down to it, FIRST isn't about who wins the match. It is about being inspired to go into the field of engineering. I am much more inspired by seeing something I helped build accomplish something than by seeing a bigger score next to our name than our opponents.

I think this game's strongest point was the diversity of robots. Lapbots, Herders, Launchers, Arms, and everything in between were all viable. 1114, 217, and 148 were all completely differant, and yet they all contributed to the "dream alliance." However, I agree that hurdlers were a bit too viable. This is kind of a throwback to 2005, where there were multiple ways to score, but tetra capping was the clearly dominant one.

In 2009, I'd like to see an endgame task like 2004, where it is different than the bulk of teleoperated mode, and yet can be built into it (hook onto capping arm) and involves more than just driving to spot X, and competing with other robots to get there. Ball capping was just a bit too similar to the rest of the game.

I think the robocoach was an okay idea, but I preferred human players.

However, I think the biggest weakness of the game was the static-ness of strategy, once you got down to the field. There was no real equivalent to on-the-spot decisions from past games, like quickly calculating if removing a spoiler or placing another ringer would be better.


Overall though, the GDC gave us another gem, in the sense that they gave us a game that worked. I am in awe, every year, that the game is completely different, and yet it is still competitive, challenging, fun to watch, not completely impossible to understand, and overall, makes FIRST fun to participate in. Thank you GDC!!!