Quote:
Originally Posted by Bochek
TL;DR: Its starting to become harder to understand the GDC's rules and design constraints, then it is to actually design and build the robots or minibots.
- Bochek
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The motivations are pretty clear: FIRST wants mini bots constructed of the same materials and similar in appearance to FTC robots. It's been pretty obvious from the start that the winning minibot is one that uses the absolute minimum amount of tetrix components, and every rule change since then has had the effect of increasing that minimum and directing teams towards using tetrix components. For better or worse the mini-bot is primarily about supporting FTC and it's kit, not being a groovy design challenge for FRC teams.
I'm agnostic on the politics of this, but it is pretty disapointing. The creative payoff keeps diminishing while the competitive payoff is the same. The minibot race will likely contribute a consistent 75 points to every game. I suspect that will account for
at least half of the total points scored in an average match. This is a
giant game element, and the rules have been shifting around a good deal.
I guess it is what it is but I wouldn't mind it so much if it wasn't such a giant game element and impossible to ignore. I can't help but feel like I started the season really excited to make a mini bot and now I'm just doing it because you really don't have a lot of choice if you want to be competitive. Oh well. Back to the drawing board.