Week 1 Impressions of Rack 'N Roll

[Eldarion]

As a programmer, I am very disappointed by the lack of emphasis FIRST placed on autonomous. 2 points is something that can be gotten far easier by making the arm a little faster, playing a little better defense, etc.

According to the scoring for this year's game, the most important thing is to lift two robots 12". Problem is, everyone decided to make a ramp bot, with a few exceptions. This makes it difficult to get ramp bots on top of other ramp / lifting bots, and as an added 'bonus' decreases the amount of scoring on the rack.

I think that the autonomous period should have been emphasized much more strongly (maybe a 15-point bonus per autonomous keeper? This would have made autonomous worth almost as much as lifting, and would have decreased the amount of ramp bots out there in my opinion.)

Also, a little note as to the rack. There are several times when the rack was moved such that both lights were out of the field of view of the camera. There probably should have been lights above all 8 columns, not just the four columns. This would also have allowed semi-automatic scoring during manual mode, and may once again have increased the number of ringers and spoilers placed on the rack. 90 seconds or less is not much time to be able to manually place more than a couple of tubes! (I am assuming a minimum of 30 seconds to be able to set up to lift / drive into position to be lifted)

So, there you are. I don't mean to bash this year's game, but to offer constructive criticism of it in the hopes that next year's game will be better.