[Katy]

I'm honestly really excited about this game. I think it is one of the best designed games I have seen in a while for a number of reasons.

The first reason is how this game is discouraging teams from just dusting off old designs. Can the California drive system take those bumps? Perhaps, but I think some other drive systems might take them better. This is a better opportunity for students on experienced teams as it puts more design work into the arena...which is a great opportunity for everybody! It is also helpful to rookies as older teams do not have the advantage of having such a large portion of their robot already worked out.

Speaking of rookie friendly, way to go on a cheap field that is easy for a low-budget team to mock up! This field is small, cheap, and can collapse into storage when practice isn't running. It is very realistic for even a very modestly funded team to push aside tables in a cafeteria and be able to mock up a whole field.

I'm not very excited about the anti-expansion rules. I would love to see some expanding field-control robots. I understand that this promotes teams to have to work on good playing strategy instead of just designing a robot that overcomes the issue, but I do like systems which promote spending a lot of time coming up with a really good, innovative design. There are lots of venues which celebrate good strategy, including traditional sports, but the celebration of good design is a fairly unique opportunity found in FIRST, and I would like to see it emphasized more.

I'm a little bit concerned about how high those bumps ride against the wall. I don't think a robots will come flying out of the playing field often or anything, but man would it ever suck if one did.

I think this is going to be a pretty low-scoring defensive game, with those bonuses being surprisingly relevant, and penalties being frightening and potentially game-changing.

I'm not excited by the concept of a new ranking system. This is because many of the better teams design their robots to do well on Saturday afternoon and not during the seeding matches. If a team is confident they will be picked for elimination matches (good reputation or good design for elimination matches) they will care less about seeding standings. When different gameplay styles reward different behaviors, and only one of the gameplays styles have an outcome that "really matters," then standings within the other may become a little more randomized. This is rough on teams paired with the teams who only care about elimination matches, for similar but more subtle variants of the same situations which caused the rules to be changed to permit super-alliances.

I am psyched to see soccer balls, especially over playground balls. Have fun with these: they are rather warp resistant, but once they do warp they get wonky fast. Also, a big thank-you for using such a commonly available resource. Last year teams had to drive far and wide to collect enough game pieces.

Overall, I think this is one of the best game designs I have seen in years.