[dtengineering]

Aha... in admiring the complexity, you miss the simplicity.

It is the easiest game to play... build a drivetrain, put a shooter on it, and hand load. Not what your team will do, perhaps... but what many of your alliance partners and opponents will do.

The shooter mechanism is probably the easiest manipulator to build since... ever? Within a day teams had demos on line and were repeatedly nailing the high goal.

As demonstrated, it was possible to build a robot capable of playing a thoroughly enjoyable version of the game and making a helpful contribution to any alliance in just 72 hours. Add a simple lift mechanism and you've got a 10 point bonus, too.

So it is simple to build a good robot, but very, very difficult to build a great one. My admiration for this years' game lies not in the challenge in building a great robot (that is always there) but in the fact that all teams have a good chance of making meaningful offensive contributions to their alliance this year.

This should be a really, really fun game interspersed with moments of 30-point climbing awesomeness. And as glad as I am that the "go for it" teams are more than sufficiently challenged, I'm even more glad that some of the smaller, less well-resourced teams are going to be able to be very competitive if they stick to a simple design and executing it well.

Jason