2015 Lessons Learned: The Positive

[Rachel Lim]

- Seeing the amazing designs that came out of the relaxed rules. I will never forget my awe that night when I first saw 148 reveal of Batman and Robin, or the days that we watched webcasts of GTRC and saw 1114, or seeing the matches that 254 played at SVR. I'm not sure if it came from this being my first year really paying attention to the game, or if the gap truly was larger this year, but I loved seeing what some teams came up with.

- Getting proof that drivetrains really are about implementation, not specific type. (And that WCD can win any game.) We did mecanum this year, and although it was interesting, it's not one I'm particularly interested in repeating...

- Less confusing fouls. They still happened, and there were still some I don't understand (like yellow totes falling over the step), but overall it was an improvement from last year.

- The removal of bumper rules. Numbering wasn't always great, but it was usually easier to read than looking at bumpers last year. Plus then we didn't have to find someone willing to make them.

- New wildcard rules.

- The emphasis on practice. Consistency of stacking, manipulation of the chute door, dealing with noodles (both driving over and throwing), and other things made driver practice really, really important (not saying it usually isn't, but consistency this year was really key). It's a lesson I hope we learned.

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These are the things I'm either still divided over, or unsure whether they're really "positive" experiences, but I wanted to mention:

- Less dependence on alliance partners to seed high or do well in general. Perhaps way too little.

- QA ranking. On the one hand, I did find it more fair and a better way to identify the top teams than WLT. On the other, it made me feel like we were constantly competing against everyone, and that if others messed up it was a chance for us to seed higher.

- 8 divisions at champs. It was really cool, and we were able to watch two fields at once, but it also made it seems like which division teams ended up in played an even larger role. Anything is better than split champs though.

- Having it to compare to Aerial Assist. I started FRC in 2014, and even though I've read of the other ones, these are the two I know well. It'll be interesting to see what I think next year after having these two extreme games.