[kevinw]

When designing and building a robot, I believe it is in everyone's best interest to keep your design, and the strategy that your design is built around (if applicable) to yourself. Otherwise, there will be too many similar/identical teams.

However, from the time the robot ships to the first regional until kick-off next year, I believe everyone should be free to learn how your robot works and why you designed it as you did. This will only improve the competition for next year, without removing any of the originality or creativity that makes FIRST exciting to watch (even in years when the scoring system is too confusing and there is no head-to-head competition). Only when teams are open can you truly learn how their robot best fits with your robot (ok, watching helps too). But during the design phase is not the appropriate time, IMHO.