Lesson Learned 2016 - The Positive

[Jared Russell]

* The game was great for the most part, probably up there near 2013 as the best of the modern era. Roles for every team on the field, a good mix of offense and defense, a worthwhile vision task, the return of the endgame, etc.

* Detailed match results were available via the FRC API, which really helped with scouting.

* Power-over-Ethernet is awesome.

* The Talon SRX is awesome.

* There were COTS drivetrains available that allowed teams to perform adequately. Imagine how the season would have looked without COTS pneumatic wheel hubs or rhino tracks...

* For the most part, the seeding system worked well at sorting the best robots near the top and allowing teams to recover from a single bad match.

* FIRST really engaged its community this year (Gamesense, FUN, etc.), which is great to see.

* Webcasts in general were of higher quality than I remember them being in the past (though still lots of variation from event to event).

* FIRST Bad Lip Reading was hilarious.

* My team and I interacted with hundreds of FIRST volunteers this year, and the vast majority of them were great to deal with. A handful were not, but I was impressed that in every case where we had a negative interaction, other more senior volunteers intervened and straightened everything out.