What will FRC 2016 Stronghold be remembered by?

[dirtbikerxz]

Originally Posted by Wayne TenBrink

I won't be sharing that video with my students. Is FIRST changing the culture or is the culture changing FIRST? For the better??? I may be old school, but I found his remarks offensive.

I know people mean well, but I hope we can do better than this. Our choice of words is important.

Don't worry, your students have already seen it. There is a time in our culture where swearing is alright. Nothing Will.I.Am said was offensive in anyway. He did not use the words in a offensive way. The words simply expressed his passion and they great deal of enjoyment he has with FIRST. If he had said that FIRST is "great", it simply wouldn't have had the same impact.
I have heard many many, great people using swear words. But they use it at the right time, and have the best impact because of them. Yes our choice of words is important, but Will.I.Am Couldn't have expressed his feelings any better in this situation.

Please don't just ignore me, or "write me off" because I am a teenager, everyone here means well, and are truly genuine when we say that his words were not offensive at all.

[Jsteel]

How incredibly equal this game made everyone. Look at how many #2 alliances lost early today. I truly believe that many matches could be replayed and the other alliance would win. It just comes down to who can make it happen when it counted.

[mrnoble]

This game was as close to being the perfect vehicle for the mission and vision of FIRST as I have seen, or think to be possible. Raise the floor, keep the ceiling high, keep the challenge fresh, engage the culture, etc. I honestly think that Will.i.am's little statement is an "engagement with the culture" and will be a tool for reaching more students. It was the perfect capstone to a great game. I look forward to sharing that little video with my students next fall and watching the interest increase. It also doesn't hurt that this year's robots will be super easy to use as recruiting tools, unlike last year's. In short, I'll remember Stronghold as my favorite game.

[dirtbikerxz]

Brutal on your bot.
Brutal on other bots.
Insane Defense.
Amazing and complex Game
Required mad driving skillz (depending on the bot).
Extremly fun to watch.
Was possible for "lower" teams to win stuff, unlike other games *cough* recycle rush *cough*

And yes...: This $@#$@#$@#$@# is mother$@#$@#$@#$@#in dope

[Oblarg]

I have no complaints about the game itself as far as how it played, apart from the goofy fan-selected defenses (why?). Sure, it was brutal on the robots - but that's an engineering challenge like any other, and perhaps it's one we ought to have more of (only recent game where this was at all a concern was 2014, and even then it was almost all bumper-bumper contact which is much easier to predict/nullify than how rough Stronghold was on drive trains). Good learning experience for the students. The game was fun and engaging and the parity was great.

I do have a bone to pick over the gargantuan task of mocking up the field. The mock-ups were not particularly great simulations of the actual field, for starters (the portcullis, in particular...), but that's par for the course. However, there were simply too many things teams had to build. We barely had room to store all of the wooden monstrosities we had to make, and I shudder to think how difficult it must have been for teams with fewer resources to make all that crap in addition to building a robot. This is a very real consideration with game design, and it's usually not a problem (the only other recent year I really had cause to complain about this was 2013 and that ridiculous pyramid).

[dirtbikerxz]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

I do have a bone to pick over the gargantuan task of mocking up the field. The mock-ups were not particularly great simulations of the actual field, for starters (the portcullis, in particular...), but that's par for the course. However, there were simply too many things teams had to build. We barely had room to store all of the wooden monstrosities we had to make, and I shudder to think how difficult it must have been for teams with fewer resources to make all that crap in addition to building a robot. This is a very real consideration with game design, and it's usually not a problem (the only other recent year I really had cause to complain about this was 2013 and that ridiculous pyramid).

We personally didn't make the drawbridge, sally port, or the portcullis.. (we also didn't make the moat, but that was because it wasn't a challenge for our bot). Since we don't have the resources to have a full field, we didn't really view not having those resources as a problem. We simply just used the specs (the dimensions) and designed the mechanisms as accurate as possible, and tweaked it on the thursday at regionals.

I personally like having so many components, it really varies the game up. I really don't think the GDC should limit themselves in this area due to this reason.

[Jopidia]

This game will be remembered as getting on that batter in the last 20 seconds. While it sounds simple enough, many teams would have won a match, but failed to get all of their teammates on the batter so they ended up losing. You could outplay the opponents the entire match and lose it all in the last second if your scaling mechaism disconnects or you get stuck on a broken game element (RIP Newton Alliance 3 semifinal 2). This was probably my least favorite part about this game. Also, excessive red card pulling. They clearly stated at the Drivers Meeting that the tip had to be intentional to be a penalty. They said something along the lines that if two robots go at each other and one tips over because they are top heavy, there is no penalty. But yet we saw it called time and time again.

[Koko Ed]

Stronghold will be remembered for being awesome!
and rather destructive....

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

Stronghold will be remembered for being awesome!
and rather destructive....

This sums it up.^

And for the weirdest match result I can recall. Stressful on the group at the scoring table trying to get the call right*, and on the alliances who had to go out and play again after that.

And for TSIMFD.


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* Whether they ultimately did will be debated, I suppose. My own view matches Jared's.