[EricH]

I personally think that FIRST simply does not give us enough time to program for all the sensors. Add to this the fact that we get a new sensor every year, and you get frantic programmers. 330 tried both IR sensors in 2004 and the camera this year, and we ran out of time (and weight) on both.

Let's look at various games, staring with 2003, when auto mode started. '03 had (I think) the largest proportion of teams with an auto mode. There were no IR sensors or cameras, nothing terribly complex. 2004 had the IR sensors introduced. I personally don't know of a single team that used them. 2005 had the CMU Cam. As far as I know, no one used it with any large degree of success.

I personally think that the only thing wrong with more sensors/more complex processors is that they need to be released early, perhaps at the same time as the game clue. Yes, let's have more autonomous robots, but can we have EIGHT weeks to get our sensor and autonomous programming done into the bargain? I think that if this is not done, few, if any, teams will have a sensor-driven auto mode in the future. More complex sensors+same time=more mars rocks because programmers have less time to do anything about moving the robot according to the feedback.

Oh, and some teams don't have very many programmers or can't spare students to learn programming because they are needed to build the robot. So they are already at a programming disadvantage, then you add something that even veterans have a hard time doing, and what do you get?