[pfreivald]

Akash is wise and full of knowy goodness.

I think Ri3D is a fantastic resource for those who need the inspiration, in a couple of different ways:

1. Rookies and young teams see what can be done, with limited resources and limited time. The phrase, "if they can do that in three days, we can do it in six weeks" was bandied around quite a bit last year (that I heard, anyway). It instills a, "yes, we can!" attitude in those intimidated by the challenge.

2. By upping the lowest-tier teams, it gives the middle-tier teams something to worry about. You see the designs and say, "okay, that's the baseline; those are the teams that can play but won't stand out. We need to do it better than that." You can emulate, iterate, or reject in favor of other designs.

3. The top-tier teams probably aren't directly affected much; they don't need the inspiration. They get it, they know how to design, they know how to not get stuck on ideas too early into the design process, they know that they're going to be competing with the 148s and 1114s and 217s and 2056s and 354s and and and out there, and they have a plan on how to continue to be one of the best teams in the world.

Furthermore, I think the most valuable lesson that Ri3D teaches those that need the lesson is that you don't have to do everything to make a competitive robot--and indeed, with limited resources you should focus on building the best robot you can, not the best robot possible.

I love it. I'm excited to see it again, and I'm excited to see VEX in on the game, too. I guess my only improvement would be to do it again week 2 with a different game strategy. (Yeah, I'm not asking for much, am I?)