2013 ACTUAL game hint!!!

[skimoose]

Originally Posted by Dad1279

I agree. Large witholding really means no stop build date. Teams can either copy more successful robots, or keep developing a practice bot, and carry in whole mechanisms.

Before witholding (and bumpers) robot designs were more varied.

I would disagree. The reason there are fewer varied designs in FRC now has nothing, or very very little, to do with the withholding allowance rule. The reason for fewer varied designed is the volume of game rules strangling creativity. Thinking outside the box used to be celebrated, now it is often viewed as lawyering the rules.

The GDC has used the rules to force the game to be played as they envisioned it being played. Before the rules strangled creativity, some games were pretty broken by how teams played them. Classic to this was Stack Attack. The GDC viewed this as a tote stacking game, it quickly degenerated into just knock over every stack and get on top of the ramp. Some teams removed their tote stacking mechanisms during the season emphasizing that teams had made tote stacking irrelevant.

Also, before the withholding allowance I know that several teams in several different years designed major revisions between competitions and were able to do a ground up rebuild of their robot on Thursday of a following competition or at Championships. So the withholding allowance rules didn't allow for iterations or copying, they somewhat formalized the process.

A truly competitive team will continue to improve their robot throughout the season.