[Eric Bareiss]

Learning to drive someone else’s robot isn't as easy as you think it is.

Our robot last year had swerve steering, all of the wheels spun on a chain, and could spin 180 degrees either way with respect to the frame. We had a knob that controlled where the wheels were and a joystick to control forward and back. We had one driver the whole season and it took him 1 1/2 regionals to figure out the controls, and he's the one that programmed them.

From what I saw we didn't even have the most difficult controls out there. I don't think it will be that easy to pick up and drive a new robot in 2 minutes.

Besides all of that, what happens when the robot gets broken because it was driven too hard by another team, who gets the blame? It's a quick way to make enemies.