[JesseK]

Typically the problems that FIRST gives us have something to do with a real-life scientific problem. If you were at the VCU closing ceremonies, Dave Lavery explained that the 10" spider feet represented sample canisters and the tubes represented the padding the canisters had to go into in order to be transported back to earth. The ramping bonus in the end game represented the different ways robots could be lifted onto a launch platform for takeoff.

For both problems, some mechanism were light and some mechanisms fit into small spaces.

That said, the I would estimate that the proposition for putting non-solid objects on a larger, fragile and instable rotating object is a very good guess at what next year's game could be. Not only does it follow the trend of huge problems that have been solved before, but it also would allow for a broad range of robots to compete, much like this year's game.