the good and the bad

[Joe_Widen]

I'm not very familiar with the purpose or rules regarding the wegde, can someone quickly fill me in.

[UlTiMaTeP]

Sides cannot be pitched anymore than 10 degrees from vertical

[Rohan_DHS]

Good

The Challenge Really fun to participate in and pretty challenging to build, which makes things a lot more interesting.

The Manual As mentioned before, the manual is getting stronger (it's only my second year and I can already tell the improvement )

GTR! Awesome Regional! Lots of teams, Lots of different robots, Lots of great people to meet, Non-stop action! It was a REALLY fun event to attend. Out of all the possible regionals to go to, I'm glad we picked this one, and I hope to see more like events like this.

Bumpers Our robot has a lot of smashes on the frame even with the bumpers on. I'm scared to imagine our frame without it!!

Kit of Parts Like Dave said, there are a lot more things added to the kit this year which is great! More things to choose from!

Bad

Regional Problems I understand that there will be a couple of technical difficulties, but from what I read on here, the regionals in the first two/three weeks didn't go smoothly, and I heard a lot of complaints from teams who should have won matches, but didn't because of errors in FIRST's system. FIRST should have perfected the field prior to the competitions, as teams are paying money to compete, it should be fair. (on the plus side) The GTR ran pretty smoothly though.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by UlTiMaTeP

Sides cannot be pitched anymore than 15 degrees from vertical

It's ten (10) degrees.
Some background: In the past, it was common practice for teams who did not want to be defended to put sloping sides on their robots. The idea was that if a defender drove onto the wedge, they would be immobilized (other than reversing to get off) and not disturb the robot with wedges. Should the defender tip over, it could be the fault of the team with the wedge (front or back wedge, mostly) or not (side wedges, mostly). However, this year, FIRST listened to the defenders who didn't like wedges (instead of the majority of voters in a poll on this subject on CD) and outlawed any slope in the "bumper zone" greater than 10 degrees. To counterbalance this, they allowed bumpers to be extra weight if they were of a certain design.

[UlTiMaTeP]

Bumpers have been allowed for years, but few people chose to use them

[BHS_STopping]

Well, I'm not really at leisure to say much about this year, considering that I'm a rookie, but I can definitely compliment (and critique, constructively) FIRST for their 2006 game.

The Good:

Variety of Regoinals and Teams.
I'm really glad to see all of the different teams at this year's game. It's really fun to meet new people and make new friends, and I commend FIRST for their outreach and their inspirational morals that help raise awareness toward students of all ages and backgrounds. The regoinals also introduce teams to people of different nationalities, and I think that it's cool to here about regionals overseas and in Canada and the teams that are there.

The Rules.
The rule book was very cleverly thought out, and it left little ambiguouty towards any rule. It was easy to understand, and even after skimming through it for an afternoon, I was able to understand the game much better.

The Refs, MCs, and Volunteers.
I am really happy to see all of the people that are willing to help promote the FIRST message, including the referees who volunteer their time to help out and the MCs who really liven the atmosphere of the competition. Also, major kudos to all of the people behind the scenes who help make all of this possible.

Edit: How could I forget the game? This is way more exciting than any professional sport, and this game had me on the edge of my seat from beginning to end!

The Bad

Automatic Scoring.
I really haven't anything to say that hasn't already been said, but I can just say that the auto-scoring could use a little tweeking, considering the errors that some teams had encountered during many deciding matches.

Another thing that sort of grinds my gears is the venue personel. At Davis, we had our banner up in the stands so that we could have a definite place to met after a match. But on the second day of the competition, some personel at the venue decided to move our banner without telling our team. It ended up some 50-odd feet away in an area with filled seats. We were even evicted from our seats because "judges needed to have a higher view to see the matches". But the seats remained empty, and were eventually filled with a gathering crowd of late-arriving spectators. We had to settle for the nosebleed section, waaaay up there in the stands. And trust me, trying to scout robots the size of ants doesn't make our scouting job any easier.

[KathieK]

This is all great feedback. Be sure your team leaders hear your feedback and they take the opportunity to submit it to FIRST via the survey or team forums.

[Daisy]

GOOD:

How about the bots? There was a great variety of 3-pointers, 1-pointers, great defense bots, and a variety of the three.

Frustrating: the camera. Lovely when it worked, but not so grand when it decided not to (I say this as a programmer). And that is all I'm going to say about that.

[JackN]

GOOD
Game-This is an excellent game. It is intense and is fun to watch. The field is wide open which is a big twist as opposed to other games.

Strategy-There are many diferent ways to play this year's game and aliance selection (Which Leads to My next point).

Picking-THis is an interesting thing about this years game. It has greatly leveled the playing field. At no regional that I attended did the Number one seed win it all. It seems that the game favored the 3-4 seed as they were able to get a strong first pick and a mid-level second pick.

BAD
Autonomous-It makes this years game exciting but 70% of matches are decided by who wins autonomous. The 10 point bonus is such a deficit that most matches between equal aliances are over in 10 seconds.

Field Problems/Real Time Scoring-This was more at Wisconsin regional where field problems interupted almost every other match, but it was at other regionals as well. Also that scoring system likes to break your heart. In the First match at Wisconsin the scores were wrong and really hurt when you watch your team win by 20 points acording to the scoring system, only to lose by 20 points when the scores are posted.

[nuggetsyl]

great job of on the posts so far guys. I am sure there are higher ups reading getting great info on what is going on.


shaun

[Gabe]

Good:
-Bumpers turned out to be a great idea for the game, and I think more teams have already decided to use bumpers next year.
-Making autonomous a more crucial part of the challenge.

Bad:
-Scoring system was not reliable. I've heard all sorts of stories about teams that lost because of scoring errors.
-Offense, defense, and free-for-all. This was really confusing and many offsides penalties were the results.


2007?

[Donut]

Good

Autonomous- autonomous finally had a large effect on the game, and teams took notice and a majority began to utilize it at last. Going with this, the camera was also a good improvement as FIRST made targets that were a more consistent color and gave more support for the camera.

Bumpers- saved our robot numerous times from potentially bad damage and made for more defense. Plus I like all the extra weight we can get.

Q & A System- Not only did I think this year's manual had fewer questions than previous ones, the question and answer system was extremely easy to navigate and keep up to date with. Responses to questions came very quickly.

Game- with projectiles suddenly being allowed, no teams had experience with doing this for a past game, and it seemed to level out the playing field between well established and more recent teams. Plus everyone loves flying poof balls.

Robot Controller- the increased code space and variable space was definitely needed, we ran out of code space last year and would have this year if we still had the same RC.

KOP- We used so many pieces from this year's kit of parts for our robot it's not even funny.

Bad

Scoring system- with the new ability to score continuously, a new scoring system needed to be implemented, and unfortunately it didn't work as well as hoped. It has great potential, there just needs to be a way to avoid the "jammed" sensor.

Ball Returns- with so many balls and such fast scoring, the goals tended to pile up with balls as return chutes could not cope.

Corner Goal Incursion Penalty- the penalty itself wasn't a bad thing (since it's basically for interfering with the scoring system), but a different punishment is needed; I would rather my alliance receive a 30 point penalty like the loading zone last year than to automatically lose the match in eliminations.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by UlTiMaTeP

Bumpers have been allowed for years, but few people chose to use them

Oh, bumpers have been allowed for years all right. It was just so hard to fit them into the 130, then 120, pounds of metal that is a robot that few did it. Now, we have a design (or you can design your own, inside the box and underweight) that, if you use it, you get 15 extra pounds and a few extra (max of 4, I believe) inches in the bumper zone.

[Joe J.]

Good

Bumpers I think it was a great addition to help protect robot and to strategy in many ways

Game I LOVE this game, so many ways to play, and the robots get to SHOOT BALLS.

Manual so few updates to the rules GDC did awesome this year

Kitbot The Kitbot has really helped competitiveness it gives all the teams an equal starting place a good drive train

Teams I've seen so many great robots this year, and haven't had a bad encounter with any team

Real Time Scoring even with all its problems its really helped make FIRST more spectator friendly

Needs Improvement (I won't say "bad" because I don't see it as being GP)

Real Time Scoring A great asset but up being unreliable at times

Field Problems Topic covered here

Thats all I have for now.

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by FreedomForce

NASA Webcasting I think independent agensey's should take care of the webcasting, therefore, we have more selection (sort of like 111 and the Midwest regional)

I'm afraid I'm a bit confused by this. I assume you're hoping for more webcasts of more events and such? I don't think this is really NASA's fault. I suspect NASA would like to, or atleast be capable of, hosting webcasts of all the events. I think the problem is simply that regionals don't have funds for the ISDN lines, or personnel to set up the equipment, or the equipment itself. I'll note that the equipment itself isn't that complicated. LSR uses a standard Polycom Viewstation to transmit the video to NASA. You could manage with any ISDN capable videoconferencing unit, or probably even a computer with an ISDN modem. As for personnel... Well if you rent equipment from a local AV firm, you could probably hire someone to set it up for you as well. It doesn't take long.

The real problem is that all of these things take money that some regionals just don't have.