[Ian Curtis]

I don't understand why you would copy a design in the same season. That isn't any fun. If I'm going to compete, I want to compete with my robot, not someone else's!

FWIW, I think even with a directly copied minibot there is a lot of room to flub up. No doubt we'll see some of that. If a team realizes that they've got to build a non-geared minibot to keep pace with the high scoring teams I think that by necessity they'll need to do engineering work to integrate it into their robot. We've seen over and over that deployment is key, and "The devil is in the details."

I understand that some teams have little to no engineering support. That is unfortunate, but at the same time I have a hard time believing those teams get a lot out of straight copying a top-tier minibot. I think there is something to be gained from reverse engineering something like that, but sending John and email asking for details is "cheating" in my world view. There is a lot to be learned looking at pictures of mechanisms and frequently consulting Wikipedia.

-Ian

P.S. Every team should take pictures of every robot at their event. If you see mechanisms you especially like, take pictures and ask about them!