RI3D this year?

[cadandcookies]

I'm seeing a lot of the same arguments that popped up in the last thread show up here again. While everyone is free to their opinions, a bit more of an open mind would be much appreciated.

One thing in particular strikes me as particularly overgeneralized and perhaps misunderstood-- when people are talking about Ri3D, it's very common to hear generalizations like "Many teams were just straight Ri3D clones," or "Teams don't learn as much because they have preexisting plans to work from"-- or "Teams would be much better off if they just did _____." I'd like to urge the people making comments along these lines to perhaps take a broader view of teams-- understand that the "stereotypical rookie" is just that-- a stereotype. Every team has a huge multitude of unique complexity to it based on the people involved, location, access to sponsors, etc. To presume that there is an objectively correct way for them to approach a problem (or that you or I, people who likely know very little of their full situation, can quickly identify that solution based on a few paragraphs of text and tell them whether they're learning enough or meeting the goals of FIRST), to me, is doing a great disservice to the problem(s) at hand.

It also strikes me as a little bit odd that people seem to be assuming that none of our hypothetical new teams are going to be trying anything new in terms of community interaction or resources. Do people really think that the previous two Ri3D competitions are a full representation of what groups can do with the challenge? I can think of several different things teams could do during and after the three days that haven't been done by existing teams (at least publicly).

Lastly, a couple of things for the people who think that Robot in 3 Days isn't as useful of a resource as it could be, or are on the fence about it:

What sort of content do you think would be most beneficial for Ri3D teams to release (during or after the three days)?

If you think there are too many "Ri3D clones" out there, what do you think Ri3D teams can do (other than completely stop the competition) to mitigate this effect?

What do you not see Ri3D teams doing that you wish they would do?

Overall, what would you like to see changed about how Ri3D teams approach the challenge?

PS: There's nothing about Robot in Three Days that says only professional engineers can compete...