Predictions on how the games are gonna go!

[Killraine]

Originally Posted by Jason Morrella

3. I predict that if it is finally shown beyond any doubt that the teams which have more time to work on their robots at home, teams that got to pay less to play and the teams that have the resources to build practice robots have a huge competitive advantage over everyone else, that it will force FIRST to get rid of the 6 week build schedule and required robot shipping to events. Yes, I'm saying teams will get to keep their robots, will get to keep working on them and will get to bring them to each event themselves. Those are not the only reasons I think this change will be made - other factors that will result in this major change will be financial savings to FIRST and how much easier/simpler many aspects would be (so many rule debates are based on the shipping and fix it windows, issues like the passionate battery debate would disappear - freeing up time, energy and sanity for mentors, students and the GDC members).

3a. This would also save FedEx money overall, so I'm sure FIRST and FedEx will still ensure donated shipping to/from events for teams not within driving distance of a regional.

I can't imagine that FIRST would EVER get rid of the 6 weeks/ship date. This policy is the only thing that comes close to balancing the early vs late regionals. If you are in the last regional and you don't have to ship, you have a whole extra build season!

As for what we will see in competition?

I'm betting on a lot of cluster and disorganization for longer than in previous years. Since this competition is based more on the robots than the game elements, teams will need to develop strategies for handling different opponents. We will start to see real alliance strategies at the Week 1 elimination rounds after alliances have been formed. As a whole, Lunacy will prove to be a much more unpredictable game than we think and we will be surprised by some truly ingenious alliance strategies (aka Champions.)