[KevinH]

Every team this year is also getting pieces to build gearboxes and frames out of a kit, and I don't think all of the mechs are complaining. Rookie teams are happy that they can get a successful robot and focus on making a robot competitive now, rather than just a robot, while I expect most veteran teams are still going to build all of their own gearboxes and chassis.

Same with programming- I expect most veteran teams will use what they know and write at a lower level w/o scripting or at least extending their scripting to be more powerful, while rookie teams will use the 'out-of-the-box' code.

If FIRST removed the ability to code at a lower level, there would be a problem, but they didn't. Rookie teams are still going to need to figure out what to do with the tools to be competitive.

I think that FIRST is very worried about veteran teams getting so much more advanced than rookie teams that rookie teams never stand a chance. That's why this year they tried to find ways to help rookie teams remain competitive with the most of the teams at a competition, and that's why this year we have a 3v3 game: in 1v1's rookies stand a suffer alone, is 2v2's, the veteran paired with a rookie often stands at a significant disadvantage, but in a 3v3, a rookie team doesn't really matter as much as past years. 3 team alliances also force rookie and veteran teams to talk, to strategize together, and helps rookie teams learn from the veterans.

I think the biggest difference this year is that this game is different-- there's no big mechanical challenge this year like 10' high chin-ups, but there's a big strategy challenge in managing the alliances. I think this is the biggest 'problem' this year, and that kits and better default code was inevitable.