[Rickertsen2]

I don't think that the hardware this year is a problem at all. Even if you do outgrow it ,there is nothing preventing you from adding somethign more sophisticad to augment it. The real challenge(at least for out team) is the six weeks. If this were extended ,then i could see alot more happening. For now i think we continue to see improvement, but only as much as the time limit allows. If Autonomous doesn't change all that much, then this is one area that teams that work during the off-season will have a signifigant advantage.

There also comes a point where you have to consider what is really needed to complete the task at hand. I think we would all love to see more sophistication, but FIRST really isn't a very sophisticated competition.
Its sad but true that elaborate autonomous systems are for the most part unnecessary. I saw lots of robots whose autonomous modes did little more than "go forward for x seconds" "turn for x seconds" etc. These worked fine and got the job done. If we want to see more sophistication then i think two things need to change. first, i think that the build time would need to be extended. Second i think that the complexity and scoring benifits of autonomous would need to be increased.

I could also see some room for upgraded hardware, but nothign more sophisticated than a real DSP with floating point math and maybie a little more memory. Even that is for the most part unnecesary. If you know how to use it, the current hardware is perfectly fine so long as the provision for custom circuits stays in the rules.