Quote:
Originally Posted by JBotAlan
FIRST made a call. A whole lot of people don't like that call. Just give FIRST a little bit of time--they don't move as fast as our posts here.
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It seems that there's another issue here, deeper than just this one update. FIRST has made a number of calls this season that have been perceived by some as questionable... changes to the pre-season design rules, dropping AVA, replacing the old KOP trannies with the Banebots, requiring the shipment of batteries, changing the match generation algorithm (and possibly not fixing it as soon as they were aware of the problem), and now this.
Some say that the problem is not that FIRST hasn't fixed this particular issue yet, but rather that they have made a number of changes, many of them midstream, and they have had unexpected consequences for teams. Each issue has been met with a great deal of whining, and most have been dealt with in due time. (The battery rule remains a mystery to most of us.) However, there is still a lot of heartache for teams in the mean time. The issue at hand (and I think what Paul is trying to get at) is not that there won't be any drill presses in the pits tomorrow. It's that FIRST has lost some sense of its responsibility to the community, and is making big decisions that affect a lot of teams without seeking community input, or at least providing some semblance of sensible justification to offset the unforeseen.
There are great ideas already in this thread. Stephen Rourke's suggestion of a reverse Q&A is excellent. I think it would be helpful to accept the ruling of Update 16, at least for the time being, and to focus on suggestions for solving the bigger issue. It's been said a lot, but don't forget the big goal of inspiration. Regardless of this ruling, we still have to be inspirational tomorrow and through the remainder of the season. It sure is harder to inspire when your robot is broken and in need of machining, but it's not impossible.
Gracious professionalism is important, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't complain. FIRST hears us, they know they need to preserve their customer base, and consequently I'm expecting change. (And I'm not talking about drill presses.)