I feel that FIRST should return to
carpet being the main floor. It reduces cost for teams in making practice fields and for FIRST in making the competition fields. The game needs to be much more
spectator friendly, being able to tell what is happening on a basic level for people who aren't in FIRST. I agree on the less restrictions, this year the robots were forced into a limited number of configurations. It would be nice to see the return of
size and weight classes like in 2006 Aim High. Human players should not be able to win a match for a robot that can't score, and be the majority of offense in the match. Maybe have one robot have a secondary goal attached such as the trailer per alliance while also having main goals in the field. Have a
recyclable scoring piece, too often was the action limited or stopped due to a lack of orbit balls on the field. Autonomous mode having a task to give a team a greater advantage at the beginning of match such as 2004. Have
three scoring type pieces, one being a
sphere (ex 2006) as the main piece but worth the least. Have a
square like piece that is limited and gives more points or some sort of bonus. The third piece being a
triangle like shape that would behave similarly as the square piece scoring wise. The sphere being recyclable throughout the match and the other two pieces being limited in quantity and possibly time at which they can be played. Keep the penalties to a minimum and they should not throw the match heavy in either direction. Have goals accessible by navigating over a different type of terrain for each different goal. An example of this would be a hole above the player station at each end, a ramp or pull up bar used to bring the robot up to score the other piece and at each corner a place for the third game piece. Also please lets have a cheap and easily accessible set of game pieces, my vote Nerf balls!
