[Rick TYler]

Originally Posted by CraigHickman

However, the more we standardize kit components, and make components and mechanisms easily available, the more we will standardize the games. This year was a wonderful example of that: A field full of driving boxes with trailers. The innovation was still there, but much less so than, say, 2005. Robots of all shapes and sizes opened my eyes to the possibilities that properly engineering a robot can bring far more than any of the recent driving refrigerators have.

Craig, I think the "all the robots look the same" problem doesn't come as much from the KOP and the availability of COTS subsystems as it does from the game design. I prefer games where there is no obvious winning strategy as this leads to diversity of design regardless of components. (I predict that the 2009-2010 VRC game Clean Sweep is going to be a terrific example of diversity. If someone can find the optimal strategy now, please drop me a note. ) Cool engineering and creative solutions come in all shapes and sizes.