Quote:
Originally Posted by Siri
I think the 'even' is misplaced. 254 and other powerhouses this season knew they were in an arms race for assist points. Very, very, very few teams in FRC, very few even among eventual alliance captains, participated in the type work EJ described during quals. And even accepting that, there's a huge jump between a concentrated effort in the pit for your own match schedule and a substantive helpful presence pre-season. I don't see any harm in such a pre-season announcement, but predicting a broad pre-season response based on 254/etc response this year is substantively a major stretch. It's certainly possible, but if HQ has compelling points against the release, history isn't strongly counter-weighted.
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Let's back to the original premise of this thread: that the GDC wants to dramatically change the relationship among teams by creating an incentive to cooperate. I presume that the GDC is a bunch of pretty smart people and they understand that for such cooperation to be effective that it requires preparation before the competitions, and even before the build season. Team resources get stretched in the build season, but are generally more flexible in the fall. Based on the GDC's action I think I'm suggesting a relatively minor tweak that is consistent with their overall intent.
I also don't think that it is a major effort for most experienced teams to provide additional support in the pre season, especially if the rookie teams are proactively identified along with key contact information (rather than passively posting the list on a website and expecting teams to go there.)
I'm not predicting that teams will respond broadly, but I do predict that teams will NOT change their behavior unless FIRST gives the teams a stronger incentive to cooperate. The GDC appears to believe that the teams are NOT cooperating enough--why else to have such a radical change?
I understand that 254's effort was almost unique (we did the same thing in the Newton field), but that doesn't mean that other teams won't pick up on that in future years. 1114's claw was unique in 2008, but many teams copied it this year. Teams innovate and other follow.
I don't see the downside for the GDC to say simply in September "this season's game will require interaction among robots to score bonus points." How does that undermine the principle of having 6 weeks to come up with a design and build? (We already know that 2015 won't be a water game! Is that too much of a hint?
) More seriously, teams already know what type of drive base they are most likely using next year--that's a HUGE leg up on designing a robot in comparison. The increased incentive for cooperation will outweigh any extremely minor premature revelation that might be possible. I'm not hearing what teams can learn for design from such a statement.