The best thing about this year’s game is that they made my job MUCH easier as a ref. Rule <G25> specifically makes it VERY clear what the refs will let you get away with and what they will nail you to the wall for. I know of WAY too many instances last year where half the refs on the field thought there should be a DQ and the other half didn’t.
Field Setup will also be much faster this year, I predict. All you have to do is take all of the tetras off the field and hardly anything else! Also, it took us less than a day to make an accurate, good quality field.
Aside from the game itself, I love the full implementation of firstawards.org. Anyone who used it for the WFA entry last year can attest to it’s easy functionality. On the other side, it’s judge friendly too. I believe this will help to increase the total number of WFA and Chairman’s entries this year and will help keep the judge’s time in that little room to a minimum so they can interact with teams more.
I really like the new CMUcam vision systems and their potential for bringing more widespread and much-needed excitement to autonomous mode. Thank you, FIRST/IRI, for helping the blind to see! Miracle workers, I tell you.
I like that this year’s game and KOP makes FIRST accessible to Rookies while given veteran teams a raised bar so that it remains interesting for both ends. The targets are there to reach for.
I also like the extremely balanced scoring system this year. There is no bonus that is out of line with what you can score playing the game the way it’s intended, ie no king of the hill (2003) or hanging from a bar (2004). In fact that’s how you get most of the bonuses.
In addition to what’s been said, I also like the fact that there probably aren’t going to be too many “killer strategies.” With the ability to cause huge point swings by adding a single tetra, drivers and coaches will have to keep sharp and stay on their toes the whole match, instead of just sitting back and letting one strategy unfold for the 10,000th time. It should make things very exciting…
Let’s see… Well one thing is certain. This is definately the most original game I have seen. And as always FIRST gives us lots of new “toys” for the team programers to play with.
Today for the first time, I saw the [Breaker Panel from Innovation First](http://www.ifirobotics.com/circuit-breaker-panel.shtml)
I don't want to get negative or anything, but it really made me MAD.
If you folks out there can see that beautiful improvement to the kit and hold it in your HANDS and still not mention it on this thread, well…
**...you guys are just not trying, that's all!**
I am serious. As a past FIRST inspector, as a FIRST Dad (go MechWarriors #573) and as a FIRST participant, I almost cried aloud, “Halleluia!” when I saw it.
It looks beautiful. Just what we need.
Now... ...are there other pearls laying amoung you swine?
I don't know, but you better not let me beat you to any more of them.
"Don't make me call my flying monkeys..."
Joe J.
P.S. I just searched on “panel” to see if perhaps I was wrongly blaming some of you. Ryan Foley gets a pass from the swine remark, “…that amazing breaker panel from IFI,…” though he didn’t really give it its just due. But fair is fair.
I really like the fact that any team can know where their bot is on the field at any time, using only parts and code supplied by FIRST!
Also, I am very glad there is no huge/complicated center piece to this years game. We constructed our goals and tetras in under an hour. Now, thats a new record!!
well, i’m excited! i’m going to keep this brief, since everything i was thinking someone has already mentioned on the thread, but this year FIRST really did a good job on leveling out the playing field. (no pun intended considering the floor is nice and flat this year) anyways, i guess what i’m trying to say that regardless if you are a rookie team or if you’ve been involved in FIRST for years, this Game has a lot of new things incorporated in it that really gives rookies a great fighting chance for once. There’s a lot of room for imagination, i cant wait to see what everyone has come up with.
on behalf of pink, i wish everyone the best of luck.
Since no one has specifically mentioned this so far, I would like to congratulate FIRST on finally making sure that there was nothing missing from the KOP this year. I’m always the one taking inventory, and usually it drives me crazy when I can’t find several of the most important parts, but this year-- everything was there! A few pieces seemed to be missing, but within a day, after checking out this wonderful site, we found out what was up with those sensors and the ‘missing’ motors, so everything was there! It was definitely a relief to all of us out there who freak out about this.
I also like how, even with all the responsibilities loaded on the robots, the human players are still given important things to do, and are kept on their toes by use of those pressure mats.
Game play. With 6 robots on the field and with the help with programing, people that are not involved with FIRST might come to watch the matches and not get board of watching and get involved in this fine org.
The idea of tic tac toe is amazing because of the many different ways to score, and to counteract the other alliance’s points. I think strategy will play a very important role this year more so than years in the past.
I liked the way the format of the kickoff was with 1 speech, and then a clue towards the game. I also think the game was explained a lot better this year than years in the past. So far, i think first is doing a very good job this year.
The shape of the new field element, tetras. When I first saw it, I was thinking, “uuuhhh… robot… can’t… grab… anything…” and I seriously thought that it would be impossible to manipulate without being extremely inaccurate… but now I see that there are actually a few different ways to reliably get them from place to place.
Balls and boxes were fairly simple… tetras will be a bit more complex. I like.
Well, it has been a week now, I have seen a signficant improvement over the week in collective attitude and general positive spirit.
Thank you for that.
I hope that the entire ChiefDelphi.com community will take it on themselves to stay positive when they can and to be contructive when they see room for improvement.
With that I am going to CLOSE this thread. Feel free to start a new thread about a positive idea when the mood strikes you.
BUT… …before I do, I want to put one more “What FIRST did RIGHT” post.
