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Driving each others robots would be too impractical. There would have to be some sort of incentive in the scoring that would award you on how well your robot did, vs. how well the robot you were driving did -- otherwise, there would be no reason to build a quality robot. Besides, I remember Dean saying that he would make the scoring system easier next year. Once you figured out how the scoring for the robot-switching worked, it certainly would not be easy to keep track of, I think that a lot of it would be subjective, which is very difficult to do consistently.
On the other hand, I would not be suprised to see more teamwork in the future. This year's competition has been said to be boring for the observers, but I found this not to be the case. That, however is beside the point. It would not suprise me to see 6 - 8 robots on the field at once, all competing against each other, but also on mini-alliances of 2, 3, or 4 robots competing across alliances. This could be similar to what occured in the very exciting 2000 competition, but on a larger scale. The playing objects would be somthing common, though bowling pins would certainly fall into that category -- I think that a complex manufacturing process for playing field objects (like the floppies) is not reasonable for most teams for practice. In addition, I think that the increased numbers of teams, would mean that the playing fields will be larger -- especially if there are more than 4 robots on a field at a time. I would expect to see an objectve that requires more from a robot than simply picking up an object and raising it over 8 feet in the air, though that does seem to be a common height requirement. Perhaps the surface of the playing field will be inconsistent, or perhaps there will be bars at irregular heights throughout the field that the robot is required to climb upon. I, for one, would also like to see some variance in size requirements. An engineer is supposed to be able to do more with less, but the sizes have been increasing in recent competitions. It would be interesting to see how designs changed if the robot could not exceed 3 feet in height.
My overall expectation for next year, would be a cross between the 1 vs 1 vs 1 from the '98 comp, and the 2 vs 2 from the '00 comp -- probably a 2 vs 2 vs 2, on a larger field that had more difficult obstacles to traverse than the standard carpeted fields have had. I would expect something that a standard 4 wheel drive system would not easily handle without modification, as well as objects on the playing field that were of irregular shape. Combine this with a fairly simplistic goal, such as putting the objects into a bin, and you could have a fairly challenging game.
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