FRC...autonomous or driver-controlled competition?

[Josh Fritsch]

Originally Posted by Stephen Kowski

....taking up too much time and you must build a 2nd robot to be able to do that.....

I believe that what Stephen said hits the nail on the head. I don't believe that FIRST could make the autonomous mode much more complicated without extending the time of the build season, and that is just something that wont happen. Unless a team has the resources to build a second robot, I know of teams who are hardly getting any drive practice, let alone time to write a complex code and still have time to debug and test. The length of the build season cannot be lengthened due to many reasons, mainly the mentors just cant take that much time off of work/families to sacrifice for the team. Another very valid point that someone mentioned is that because this is only a high school competition, the students do not get extensive programming experience. Now, if FIRST was a college competition, I can see it becoming much more involved, however since it is not, I don't see a big change in the near future coming.