[bardd]

The major effect of frame being measured by perimeter, as was already mentioned, was no more than the robot shapes.

What DID have a big effect on the game was the perimiter you were allowed to have. 112" of perimeter does not allow as big a footprint as 28X38. It's about 6.2% less, if you create a circular frame, and if you go with a more traditional square, 26.3% less. The kitbot has 33.8% less footprint area than last year's 28X38, and that was the easiest option that most teams used (we did).

Because of that, fitting mechanisms into the robot was much harder, and demanded more tradeoffs. Because of that we saw much less robots perform many tasks, and none could do all (the closest was 469 IMO that could do anything except climb and dump).

I do like the perimeter rule, it allows a lot more flexibility in frame design, but I really hope they would make it bigger so teams could do more.


tl;dr- Perimeter good, 112" bad.