Thoughts on Ri3D and BuildBlitz

[AquaMorph]

Originally Posted by mrnoble

I'd like to see it taper off from this year. I think they went a little too far, because everyone was excited by last year's result and wanted to participate. I think that teams without ties to the companies we rely on should continue, and maybe even step up the detail. Teams that pull resources from AndyMark, VexPro etc. would improve our experience by making sure the supply chain is intact.

No offense intended to either AndyMark or VexPro. The bots were great and we learned from them, and they are definitely doing everything they can to get parts out.

I completely agree. I think Ri3D and BuildBlitz should serve as inspiration about what can be done. I would like to see a simple completion video demoing the robot and that is it. Last year Ri3D was fantastic. It was great to see a robot that could play the game that early into build season. It was obvious that it wan't a fantastic robot that would win regionals but it was an encouragement of what could be done. I think this years game is so simple mechanically that it made Ri3D and BuildBlitz have a more negative effect than with a normal game. I say simple because there is no end game and mechanically all that has to be done is catching, collecting, and shooting a ball. This year Ri3D and BuildBlitz created robots that could do all 3 of those things. I think this will lead to a good deal of copying but we will have to wait and see. So I think scaling back the resources provided by Ri3D and BuildBlitz would be my suggestion. By no means would I want them to stop. I personally enjoy seeing a working robot so quickly.