[JesseK]

While it is conceivable that the GDC will put a difficult terrain on the field for all robots to traverse, I do not believe it will ever happen. First, rookies still have to have a way to be successful with the bot, hopefully just by driving and pushing something. Otherwise many would be discouraged in their second year.

Then there's the fact that the field itself is already alot to move around when it's just carpet. Volunteering at Battle O' Baltimore 2 and then sticking around for field teardown at the end really opened my eyes to what it takes to create something that's easy to setup. Whoever designed the field is a master of aluminum extrusions. On top of that, there was very little room left in the NASA trailer for additional field elements after the overpasses, electronics, and general field equipment was put in it.

So for tricky terrains -- you can always hope, but I think there will always be a way to not have to deal with it.