I think this is a great thing, not only the code but the improved chassis and transmission.
To all the veteran teams with fancy PID, line-tracking, IR-following and RPS (Robot Positioning Systems
) algorithms, I'm sorry, but it's gonna need improvement, because every single rookie in this competition already has one, supplied by FIRST.
Get the point? What FIRST is doing is fantastic; rookies jump into this competition with much better tools than they used to have, and veteran teams are "forced" to improve their systems because the bar was significantly raised.
In theory, what FIRST does is supposed to level the playing field, but I'm sure they know that they'll never accomplish that; instead, they are indeed raising the overall level of the competition, and this is great to make FIRST bigger than it currently is, and that's what we all should strive for - more teams, more people involved, more lives touched.