Lovin' This Game

[logank013]

This game is definitely pretty cool.

Pro List:
Real Time Strategy: As the main database guy on our team, we took this game to finally develop some real time tools. The tools worked great but the "live" part of the data wasn't implemented until day two due to emergency paper scouting on day 1. Will see how "live" works in week 3.

Fun to watch as a spectator: While we were in NC, I met a guy at a hotel who asked about robotics. I showed him the animation and he seemed super interested and was trying to go to the event (not sure if he ever got there). A lot better then stacking totes for a spectator

Gap between ok and bad is really small: Good robots as always always stand out. But the difference between your mid ranking teams compared to the bottom of the list teams is pretty slim in comparison to other years. Pretty much every robot can cross some sort of defense.

Con list:
Robustness is an issue: Our robot was on the field every match but broke in 3 to 4 of the 12 qualification matches and in both QF matches. Many other teams including our first pick had a similar issue. Our first pick 3196, Spork (awesome people to work with by the way), went from being a great high shooter in qualifications, to being a low shooter only in our first QF match (broke high shooter mechanism), to having no shooter in our second QF match (broke low shooter in first QF match). It was nothing that was foreseen and was caused by a rough game. That is just one example.

Scouting is huge and some teams can't afford it: Scouting is a huge part of this game this year. By this, I don't mean it costs a lot in money. By this I mean some teams of only 10 people just don't have enough people to scout. If a small team becomes skilled enough to end up in that first spot, the robot they may have seen perform well a few times might not fit into their alliance well.

Third partner is super important: The issue I see with this is in last year's game, the top captain and the first pick could win a district event or regional with little to no help from the third partner. This year, scouting drive trains is even more important than ever. Third robots need to be able to play defense whether they were designed for it or not. At certain district events, there are only 25 teams. This makes choices super slim for the first alliance's second pick.

There is even more I could add to the list but this post is long enough. Hope you enjoyed. Just hit the big points. Don't get me wrong. This is easily a top 3 FIRST game. Just had to add some cons too