Suggestion for a new overall approach

[Citrus Dad]

The comments on this year's game makes me wonder if FRC should take a different approach to releasing the game design so as to promote greater cooperation within the FRC community.

Other than the disproportionate foul points, I think this game gets an important aspect that can enhance the FIRST experience across all teams. It requires cooperation across the entire alliance to succeed. Unfortunately this year's competition has been dominated by power teams, even to the extent that there's a thread about the "ethics of saying 'no'". This game gets all of the teams back into the action. I think that the game could be better designed, and even Ultimate Ascent could have given even more incentives to alliance play (e.g., more points for FCS and rebound collected shots, and more allowance for blocking FCS to require counterdefense.) But that shouldn't take away from the aim of the GDC.

That said, the lack of design and build experience by the newer teams is highlighted in this game. A disabled or unavailable robot creates a 20 point per cycle penalty. That's unfair to the other two alliance members who have absolutely NO control over that aspect--it's even worse than a 50 point technical. FIRST accentuated this problem this year by pursuing a strong team recruitment effort, particularly in California and Michigan (which I applaud hugely!) The result is even MORE inexperienced teams. From my analysis of the OPRs, it appears that the spread between teams has increased this year compared to 2013 and 2013 (which had very similar year to year spreads).

The answer is requires a three-fold strategy (which we plan to implement the our part locally here in the Sacramento Valley).

1) FIRST needs to announce in September, long before Kickoff, that it is planning a game that requires robot interaction with bonus points. This gives all teams a signal that they must rely on their alliance members much more than in the past. The GDC need not reveal anything more so teams are not going to get a jump on design.

2) FIRST needs to provide a list of newest teams (including prospects) to other teams in the region so that the older teams know who they need to contact for step 3). FIRST should try to finalize this list by the end of November.

3) The more experienced teams should start in September to visit the newest teams, both this year's and last year's rookies to start, to explain how they design for different game strategies, including focusing on specific, manageable tasks at the outset, and to train these teams in building robust, reliable robots. And guess what? This program both enhances the FIRST experience AND achieves some of the most important educational objectives of FIRST. It also builds community by bringing together the best teams (which aren't always viewed in the best light) with the newest teams.

FIRST could take this a step further by assigning the top teams a number of new teams to mentor, e.g., 3-5, and start the assignments based on world ranked order. Participating could become a requirement for FIRST membership. Many top teams do this, but it would formalize the process and ease finding the newest teams. FIRST could even create the ability to have "superalliances" that some how play into regional rankings and world championships qualifications.