[seanwitte]

This is a rule that I do not agree with. You have 6 weeks to build a robot, period. Designing and writing software is no different than building a part. You can't build spare parts so why should you be able to write spare code? They provide a test platform so its not as if no work can be done before the robot is completed. It is a design challenge to build software that can cleanly scale from the EDU controller to the full-size controller. I do not think teams need a great autonomous program to be successful. The game this year will not be won or lost in the first 15 seconds, but that 15 seconds provides a much more interesting design challenge to the software people. There seems to be a slant towards the mechanical side of robotics in FIRST and this is step towards validating the software side. I think they need to keep the autonomous period intact but level the playing field.