Nerf Co-op and Litter

[Nathan Rossi]

I was personally a bit concerned about the value of litter when I first saw the game at kickoff. I thought it was worth way too many points. Though, after getting some hands on experience with the noodles, I was fairly certain most human player would be unable to throw the noodles far enough, diminishing my concerns of human players scoring way too many points.

As build season moved along, our human player (as well as other human players) were starting to show signs that they could consistently throw litter onto the opponents field. After watching week 1 events, it's clear most human players can throw litter and it's a very good strategy. Why? Two main reasons, one, it's worth four points if it's unprocessed, and two, it clogs up your opponent's field, creating annoying obstacles.

The problem I have with litter is that human players can directly score many points, a lot of times more than the robot themselves, this can swing matches. What I don't have a problem with is pool noodles getting in the way of robots. It's part of the engineering challenge. How are you going to be able to push pool noodles and still get over the scoring platform? There are several simple solutions, but I hope you get my point.

I think the penalty of pool noodles getting in the way of opponent robots is reason alone to throw them. My suggestion to FIRST, make unprocessed litter worth 1 or 2 points, preferably 1.