[PayneTrain]

Most things in life are "what you make of it", and I don't see these projects being taken on by the community as something you can spin to be a holistically negative endeavor when it comes to developing the program locally (the teams) and globally (the events).

Unfortunately I can't call up JVN and ask him his opinion on butterfly/nonadrive vs. octocanum/jumpdrive vs. standard six wheel, etc., but then again, neither can essentially any other of the nearly 2800 teams in FRC. I know these boards are populated by people who either have incredible FRC experience, are intelligent professional engineering resources for FRC, or both. How many of the nearly 2800 teams can say that? How many of the defunct or disbanded teams could have said that? I don't think it's a stretch to say that having a wealth of human resources on an FRC team is uncommon.

How are these projects any different than me reading a presentation on 33's 8 wheel drive or poking around through someone's STEP file or referencing 610's kickoff process to build one for a team I'm on? This community has grown through intelligent, experienced people freely sharing their ideas with the community as a whole, and other intelligent, experienced people using them as a jumping-off point to improve upon the original idea.

The fascinating thing about Ri3D last year was that not only did they put together an incredibly competitive concept in a short amount of time, but they gave teams the opportunity to use what these experienced FIRSTers knowledge to use however they want. Believe it or not, not every team in the world is or should be exactly like yours, and that's for better or worse. Some teams are 6 passionate rookie kids and a teacher way over his head. Others are a legion of 80 kids, a dozen literal rocket scientists mentoring, and years of experience and discipline that mirror a real small engineering firm. Ri3D can properly serve those teams and anyone in the middle of the spectrum. Some teams don't have the bandwidth or experience to know how to prototype or design yet. Some teams like to check out the competition down the road as a barometer.

I don't know how having 5 possibly radically different designs might affect competition this year, but last year you saw some Ri3D "clones" (that couldn't be true clones because Ri3D wouldn't have passed an FRC inspection), some teams use it as a "jumping-off point" like any other resource, or some teams not seemingly incorporate its influence at all. To me, Ri3D is just a step above the bucket hopper, the hooded shooter, the roller claw, the soccer ball roller, the Lunacy "vomit mode", the Overdrive "hurdling"... you get it.

Ri3D is something that improved the community at the expense of no one but the people who paid money and lost sleep time to make it happen, and for that I'm grateful.