Another way of looking at it is that a teams accumulated knowledge and their collective imagination might be their greatest resource, greater than having access to money, materials or fabrication equipment.
Though they don't explicitly state it, ToddF and John Retowski's last posts would seem to indicate that one's imagination is like a muscle. The more one exercises it when one does not need it, the stronger it is when one does need it.
Oh yeah, rules are rules. Every competition has some constraints that one has to work within, even the "unlimited" ones. Why not make each match 2 1/2 hours long so that alliances can score more points? As long as the same rules apply to all the participants, it is fair. Yes, some teams have access to more resources, etc. What about some of the participants themselves? We have several team members who are are naturally "gifted" and have "extreme intuition about all things mechanical and electrical". They have "the Knack" and have an "unfair advantage" when asked to do things like designing and building robots. Not all teams will have members with the Knack. Should team members like them be banned?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx6HojLBsnw
Learning by failure is quite common. - Gdeaver [more] 
17-01-2016, 09:47
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