Quote:
Originally Posted by StevenB
I'm hearing an awful lot of complaining about the removal of a strict constraint mixed with a lot of complaining about the addition of a strict constraint. More than a few people have moaned that the expansion of the 60" cylinder to 84" reduces creativity. If that's your line of thinking, then please consider the MINIBOT restrictions as the kind of engineering challenge you wanted.
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You seem to be misunderstanding what people are saying. In the removal of the 60" constraint, creativity is, arguably, being removed by letting teams basically build giant arms like in 2007.* By adding the constraint to the minibot construction, creativity is being removed because it limits your designs to basically making the same minibots. As stated elsewhere on CD, it has basically become an issue of who can make the lightest minibot. That's hardly a tough engineering challenge. This change also has some political implications, as well as an increased cost for many teams who do not have access to the FTC kit. That is more where my issue comes from--FIRST is now basically requiring everyone to use their flawed FTC system.
Additionally, teams have already spent the past four days brainstorming and designing and these are two very big changes, especially now that teams who don't have an FTC kit will need to find a way to borrow one or acquire their own. As stated, this can be quite costly for teams running on a very limited budget.
*I tend to disagree that this reduces the creativity, but I'm trying to help you see the other side.