Robot Diversity

[FRC4ME]

I think the way to encourage diversity in a game is to provide multiple, unrelated methods of scoring and allow teams to choose which method they wish to focus on.

In my opinion, the GDC has done a great job of this in past years. In 2006, you had high goals and low goals. In 2007, you had ringers and the elevation bonus. 2008 was excellent! You could hurdle, herd, cross lines, or place to get points in teleop, and autonomous had its own special scoring. 2009 was probably the worst year I've seen in this regard: shooting moonrocks into baskets was the only way to score, and the bonus scoring methods (e-cells and supercells) required pretty much the same engineering as the regular scoring method. Having said that, 2009 (my high school senior year) is the year I learned the most from FIRST, because the diversity was still there; it had just been largely moved into software (traction control).

In 2010, you have goals, elevation, and suspension as scoring methods. The cost/benefit ratio for suspension is so low, I doubt we'll see it more than once, so that one doesn't really count. So I would say the diversity of this game, with two main scoring methods, is about average.