[Joe G.]

Originally Posted by mrnoble

There are so many examples of "leaks" in the non-FRC world that have dramatic consequences for businesses or competitive events. For instance, I play Magic, and nearly every game release there is some major and early leak of cards, which can dramatically impact the bottom line of many businesses. There is no way that FRC could reliably pass on info like that and get away with it; we would soon hear about insider trading situations, with teams whose mentors have access to the info being better prepared in advance for the game. It would ruin FRC. No way.

We already know that they do this to some degree. Andymark stocks the gamepieces, builds a kitbot to suit the game, and in the past, has even supplied FIRST-mandated robot components (2009).

In general, I think you'd be surprised at how many people do know the game, or at least have a good picture of it, in advance. Suppliers for game specific elements, the production crew for the kickoff broadcast, the volunteers who set up the official field for Manchester kickoff, all the teams who build field elements for local kickoffs, and so on. To my knowledge, there has only ever been one "leak" of information prior to kickoff, and it was pretty inconsequential. The exact people who would be told "hey by the way, this'll be a big year for pneumatic wheels" already know quite of confidential information about the game. They may know this already; I personally doubt that it's a coincidence that Andymark just happened to release an FRC legal tank tread system, an approach that had been almost universally written off as unreliable and unnecessary in FRC for over a decade, a few weeks before FRC's toughest terrain game ever was released.