[PayneTrain]

I was just annoyed to find out FIRST in 2010 was apparently shocked that an inherently-defensive game was low scoring, so now rules deducting points need to be made so teams can score more points.

It's mindboggling to look at old robots my team had, where there were no bumpers: just unbendable, lock-tight, well-crafted, high quality machine robustness keeping the bot together. In fact, while the 07 and 08 robots are dead and gone, the 01, and drive trains of 00, 02, 03-2, and 04-6 are still intact. The endgames required ridiculous challenges.

2010 was a flashback to the true engineering challenges that FIRST required. the 07, 09, and 11 competitions don't require teams to do anything relatively astonishing. I will admit Lunacy was my favorite, but in the end, it was basketball-tag on the "moon." It wasn't tough to figure out like navigating through a short tunnel or over a hill, or possessing a ball without truly "holding it." 07 required teams to use a rather stereotypical gripper to achieve the main goal, as we do in 2011.

Will we get a true engineering challenge in 2012? Will we get a ranking system that makes sense? Will I do cartwheels at the Virginia Regional? All this and more next year.