[Lil' Lavery]

While I agree that the implications for Einstein are very strange, I think far too much emphasis is being given on this. As Allen Gregory pointed out, simply placing your robot on the field second doesn't guarantee that you'll win a contest for the scoring objects at the center of the field. While I understand its importance from a theoretical perspective, in reality, I don't think it will have nearly as much impact as you guys are making it seem.

Beyond that, if winning the center step was an absolutely crucial portion of your strategy, you should have been planning on facing off against other teams from the beginning. Being faster and/or stronger should have been a design priority for your acquisition system(s). Having seen the types of autonomous routines devised in recent years and the types of devices concocted for similar early match challenges, I'm not sure why a team planning on winning these contests at the highest level would hinge their strategy on robot placement order.

I'm sure plenty of elite teams did account for this, and are prepared to win the center step regardless of placement order. And I'm even more sure that there will be far more matches in which the center step goes uncontested, especially during autonomous.