[Shu Song]

Agreed, variation in robots has always been FIRST's trademark. But somehow, that variation in robot construction turned into variation in strategy. With all the robots able to do the same thing, strategy becomes essential. During build season, when teams were showcasing their robots on CD, I saw that each robot looked just like the one before it, with the only variation being the lift mechanism, be it an arm or forklift.

I highly doubt that FIRST overlooked this aspect of the game, and the more likely scenario is that FIRST wants us to focus more on strategy, rather than design. In past years, pre-match alliance meetings were over in minutes, but now, each of our meetings were up to 5 minutes, even 10 sometimes. And our pre-elimination meeting took from the end of alliance pairings to the beginning of elims.

I'm not so sure how I feel about this shift in tactics by FIRST. I would have prefered variations robot design AND emphasis on strategy.