[Al Skierkiewicz]

John,
Some of the restrictive language is designed to make you think harder to overcome problems that other disciplines face everyday. (weightlessness for one and high temps for another) You can run parallel processing under certain conditions and many teams actually do. This year's game did not lend itself to as much of that as I have seen in the past. The output of the parallel processing can be very inventively ported through some of the digital inputs. The only restrictions that have and will remain is the need for all motor and power output devices to be controlled by the single main controller which this year is the Crio. This need revolves around the requirement to start and stop the robot under field control and to prevent any robot movement with a single command of the person in charge of the field. Bluetooth products may be used in the future but some controls will need to be added to prevent parallel operation which is not under field control. The size and weight, motor type and number, battery and control system all add to premise that all teams are forced to design around and for these added "virtual real world" problems. By doing so, teams are asked to design to a very strict list of problems in addition to the game. That actually adds to the creativity of the design rather than limit it. If you have any specific items that you don't think you could have used, please ask here or PM me and I will let you know if they were possible. I can also forward your comments to interested parties.