Lesson Learned 2016 - The Negative

[BoilerMentor]

Originally Posted by Knufire

Design games where the referees aren't also scorers.

Our perspectives don't often align, but I agree with this statement. In 2015 we got scorekeepers for a game object that had to be in place at the end of the game, there was really only one scoring medium, and robots didn't really interact. In 2016 we got two distinct ways to score and robot to robot interaction (some of which could be extremely aggressive) and we didn't get score keepers.

~I feel like this should be a simple rule for GDC: If it doesn't have automated scoring and happens with a degree of frequency throughout the match, it needs a score keeper.~

I do agree some of the assessment of penalties, or the decision to not call them was inconsistent, but that comes with the very subjective nature of many of the rules this year. I hope FIRST understands that being able to see contact between robot and carpet is really, really hard most of the time.

The bumper zone situation absolutely must be addressed. There was no reason for the bumper zone to be as high as it was this year and this very rule created the situation that lead to the bulk of the red cards handed out this season.

~The total height of the bumper zone should be no more than the minimum allowable height of a standard bumper plus 2" (maybe less, that's an off the cuff estimate) and positioned in such a way as to not significantly influence the difficulty of achieving a given task in the game~

I think we could have used just a little more of a technical challenge this year.

All of this aside, I believe FIRST Stronghold may be my favorite game of all time. It was entertaining to coach and to watch. Strategy was awesome in so many ways. Robots were a manageable size. If your robot could drive, you could play a significant, strategic role.