[tdlrali]

First of all, this thread contains some of the best discussions I've ever seen on Chief Delphi.

The two common viewpoints here seem to be either that a low-level system is better since students learn more or that high-level is better because it allows everyone to be more competitive.

How about a mix of the two? That's what we have right now - more experienced / advantageous teams can write everything in C (which is low-level enough), and the others can use easyC/WPILib.

Of course, neither option comes with complete control logic for everything, but the basic building blocks are there - we can use encoders, gyros and the like right out of the box (ok, small tweaks are often necessary). The argument that this is not enough is not valid. Software and hardware are very similar in this aspect: FIRST doesn't ship us a complete drive base that works right out of the box - they give us frame components, gear boxes and motors, and we can figure out what to do with it.

Continuing the hardware to software analogy, if all teams were given a full drive base, would that make FIRST better? In my opinion, it would not - it would take away from the design process and frankly, it would make the robots boring. Would we see swerve drives on the field if everyone was given a full drive base? Similarly, the fact that we are not given full software blocks makes FIRST more competitive.

Now, to get back to the actual topic, how would any hardware solution affect what the software can do? As long as FIRST leaves enough possibilities (aka, the choice of either using low(er)-level or high(er)-level programming), anything is possible. I don't think that FIRST should give us full software solutions to common problems, though. Coming up with those solutions is just as important of a lesson as finding solutions to mechanincal problems.

Lastly, the community has a huge influence over what is available to teams. I know that CD is always willing to help out people asking for help, but every team needs to be aware that this resource is available.

It would also be helpful to newer teams if the older teams stepped up and released some of their precious source code. I know everyone is proud of what they achieve and does not want to give it up to other teams since they want to keep the competitive edge, but if we want to make competitions more interesting, we need to give some of it up.