[Kris Verdeyen]

Lets get this straight, first of all - FIRST is not Battlebots, and even with the amount of interaction allowed this year, FIRST will not become Battlebots. Even if the games themselves were exactly the same, FIRST will not be BB because of FIRST's code to be gracious professionals at all times. BB doesn't have that.

Does anyone seriously believe that there will be bloodthirsty teams marauding across the playing field, destroying any robots in their path? It stands to reason that no one in this thread complaining about the ruling would behave that way, so why are we so quick to assume that other teams will? IMHO, gracious professionalism includes giving other teams the benefit of the doubt, i.e. assume that they will behave as professionally as we would.

However, even with GP, there will be robots damaged by game interaction. That's inherent in the game. So what can we do about it? We can cheat, by building parts between competitions, we can rely upon the kindness of strangers (which is rarely overestimated at FIRST events), or we can get smart, and build spares beforehand of parts likely to break.

Finally, I would like to say that, yes, it would be nice to have those three days with our robots after the regional, like last year, but I do see the logic in the ruling. It reduces the advantage that rich teams have over those with fewer resouces by not allowing those teams that can afford to go to three regionals have more time with their robot than those that can't. It's that simple.