[apples000]

At first, I dismissed this thread as some crazy theory that somebody came up with. The game this year seems a little boring. After two easy to explain, crowd pleasing exciting games, this one seems, well, a little dull. We thought the GDC learned their lesson with relying one alliance partners in 2012, and hard to explain games in 2011. Try explaining the assist system to an outsider, or how cycles work. If a robot e-stops, dies, breaks etc..., then no points for that alliance. To be the minimum competitive concept, you need to be able to pick up balls, drive, and put them in goals. The most competitive robot, will do the same three things.

My first explanation for the truss was that it originally held something, but for some reason, the GDC decided against this. Then, I watched the video. Even though I'm fairly certain that this is just me fantasizing about getting a different game (I don't like this one), Woodie's sentence struck me as being really weird during the kickoff, and there's no explanation. Usually, FIRST wants to spend as much time showing sponsors, scholarships, or inspiring speeches, and Woodie's sentence doesn't really mean anything besides for in this context.

Woodie says
"launch this year's madness. We're always trying to come up with new ways to keep things fresh and push the boundaries, so we're doing things a bit differently this year, making changes throughout the season from kickoff to championship"

He's not talking about one (possible) change for just championships, he's talking about changes for ALL parts of the season.