paper: Spanking the Children

[cbale2000]

Originally Posted by Chadfrom308

I hope they allow drive trains with more than 1300w of power! Ours is 2.4 kW!!
But most of those long terms are things teams need to design for.

I couldn't agree more. One thing that I've seen in recent years is that many teams no longer build a "robust" robot that's designed to handle the intensity of the game. The robots we all used to build prior to 2007 (the first year bumpers were mandated) make some of the chassis I see these days look like they're made out of tin foil.
Personally I think teams that decide to take extreme weight-reducing measures by compromising the durability of their bots should do so at their own peril.

I do think that offense should be deregulated more (getting a penalty called because a defending robot gets itself in the way of your collector is absurd), but I don't think you necessarily need to super regulate defense (like in 2008) to accomplish a balanced game. I still think 2006 was one of the best, most balanced games to date, and it included an open field, lots of game pieces, good defensive robots, good offensive robots, and few bumpers.