[Billfred]

I'm going to attempt to split the middle here.

Yes, I also thought of quite a few minibots that are presently illegal.

Yes, I can think of many more ways that the minibot race could be made a more interesting challenge. (Paging the IRI planning committee......)

No, I'm not surprised FIRST made this change (beyond the fact that I'd forgotten about items that met this criteria, e.g. the Vex aluminum kit).

No, I'm not wild about the implications highlighted on this thread (see Dave Lavery's thread--grow the pie).

No, this change is not going to stop us from building a minibot using our FTC mini kit from FIRST Choice, which we acquired for under $10 in shipping and in reasonably short order courtesy of the fine people at AndyMark.

On the bright side, if you're willing to look strictly at the engineering challenge presented and can ignore all this other stuff, this year's edition of That One Rule The GDC Put In The Manual That Frustrates Everybody On ChiefDelphi is still the easiest one to manage in ages. We'll have eight months to talk about vision to FIRST...but four weeks to complete this build season.