[Peter Matteson]

The game had several good things going for it this year:
The new surface made veterans re-think their drive systems and in our case we built something we never otherwise would have and now have opened some doors for where we might go in the future.
The decrease in power needed to drive also had us focus on different types of mechanisms than we usually build because we had far more motor to run them.
The opponent controlled goal was novel and showed us the way to add some variation to the game that made for more excitement.
The human player scoring was something I liked because it made it so that there was nowhere on the field to hide and you had to be mobile at all times.
Lack of penalties are always good, as they say in sports, the refs could "let us play."
The supercell was a good "big ending" bonus and the weight of it was appropriate to scoring verses some other years.
The game piece was great because it was different than any other type of ball we used in the past and the plentiful quantity of them was great as well.

My main complaint is the game didn't pass the parent/grandparent/person off the street test, meaning it was too hard to follow if you weren't a FIRSTer already. If we want to grow and get noticed we need to be able to quickly explain the game and who is leading should be easier to tell.
Red and blue bumpers should have been banned to make telling alliances apart better.
If the field was bigger I think it would have allowed more movement making the game more exciting, but I doubt this works in all venues.

My other complaint is we were forced to play the game the GDC's way. I like being able to creatively solve the problem/game, but the last couple years our choices have been limited more and more so you see fewer why didn't I think of that robots and most of the game breaking stratagies are thought out in game design and removed through rules.