[efoote868]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

But don't expect teams in a competitive environment to act solely out of the "goodness of their hearts."

I don't, but that's why there is a need for this type of rule.

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

I have yet to see a robot that could only grab 2 cans in autonomous and wasn't already competent enough that it would be picked up in the first round of the draft. You're describing a pretty technically challenging task that is way beyond most teams this year (which is another point of this thread.) (I've watched quite a few webcasts.) The choices have always been between robots that might at most be able to put up 2 tote stacks.

I'm describing a hypothetical example, although my team from 2004 would be a good example from a different game.
There are teams that build a robot around their technical capabilities, specifically dissecting the game to determine how to maximize their utility to a high ranking team.

I don't like the idea of high ranking teams creating extra mechanisms to fit their needs of an alliance and then picking a robot based on its adaptability to add (read - easiest to bolt on) that mechanism, instead of picking another robot based on its present ability or future ability after a little help.