[EricH]

Originally Posted by davidthefat

With that in mind, that is one reason for having such ambitious goals this year: Not to be ordinary. "Innovate not imitate" is one phrase that really stuck with me from the whole FIRST experience; I am taking that to heart.

I guess my advice is not to be satisfied with competence but to aim for the stars; go above and beyond of what is expected.

Innovation just because you can innovate is not a good reason to have innovation.

Innovation because the game strategy calls for innovation is an extremely good reason to innovate.

Let's take 1625 this year. 6WD swerve. Probably the #1 most complex drive to attempt, but their strategy called for the capabilities that it could provide, and they did very well. Same for 1501's triangular robot.

OTOH, see 1114 in 2008, 330 in 2005 and 2008, 148 almost any year, and quite a few rookies (the highest rookie seeds, typically), as well as some of 1625's other robots. They build simple robots that are engineered to perform well. Innovation (or, in 1625's case, WINnovation) on these robots assists a simple design. It does not replace it.