[Tom Ore]

One thing that may help a bit is to look at it this way:

Initially the minibot rules were not well defined but we had to get started designing. Maybe the clarifications to the rules maybe didnt' help much. Then clarifications and new rules started to conflict with each other forcing teams to ask more questions to get the conflicts sorted out. All the while, the importance of the minibot and end dates didn't change.

This sounds a lot like life in the real world to me - not much fun but we've all learned how to cope when this happens. Maybe there's a lesson for the students in this...