First Robotics In Popular Mechanics

[2611.Shooter]

buildmaster: that is part, but not all, of it. It leaves out all the pictures of teams at the back.

Buzz: I agree, moving to a three year game would completely destroy the ability of rookies to actually compete. Imagine being a rookie team, joining on the third year of a game, and going out against a team with two previous years of refinements and observations of other teams (you know how at the first regional, people are always like "why didn't I think of that?" well, those other designs could be then incorporated into the next year's bot, and by year 3, all of the experienced teams would have superb, similar bots.) I also think that this would put a severe dent in gracious professionalism- why show off how your bot works if they can then copy it for next year? A 3 year cycle would SUCK!

[Bill_B]

Originally Posted by 2611.Shooter

A 3 year cycle would SUCK!

Is that really the only 3-year cycle you can imagine? Maybe it's a good thing you're not on the GDC then, eh?

Spend a minute or two to think why anyone would consider announcing the rules for a game to be played by using remote-controlled machinery three years from now. Then compare this to the designs and construction that goes into, say, planetary probes. If the game is "tell us all you can about Jupiter" what would you do differently than has already been done by Voyager and Galileo spacecraft?

Next think about how a construction time limitation might be applied to such a game announcement. A lot has already been said about how "real worldly" the six-week build season is. I'm betting the real reason for the limit is so that the mentoring engineers are not "stolen" from their real jobs for too long. These days, quite a bit of design and construction is done by the students, so it would be an even harder job to sell the various boards of education on the distraction of a long build season.

One thing FRC teams might be required to do in the future, is something FTC teams are already doing. A team engineering journal could be kept by the team during an extended duration project in such a way that documents just how much time is used for construction.

So, this has all the potential for a thousand-entry thread of its own, similar to game hint speculation. My apologies if this thread is hijacked by the 3 year subject.

[ATannahill]

Can someone expand on this 3 year topic for those of us who don't get Popular Mechanics?