Is a shifting transmission really necessary?

[Cory]

Originally Posted by mechanicalbrain

Two things. One I think you under estimate the ability of small teams. Second I think that just becuase a game doesnt require that a team to be inovative with something certianly doesnt mean that they shouldnt do it anyway. If we arent always pushing the bounds of our knowledge how can we expect it to grow?

I'm not underestimating small teams, I'm being realistic. Rookies will have trouble with an excessively complex game. It would only increase the gap between rookies/teams without lots of resources and a small knowledge base and well established teams. The current teams that do well will continue to do so, because they have the resources and engineering know how to come up with a solution for whatever FIRST throws at us.

Sure, you can push your bounds of knowledge, but it makes zero sense to make something that isn't useful for a given competition. Why waste six weeks building an overly complex drivetrain that won't perform any better than the standard kit drive, when you could have spent that time working on programming or an awesome end effector?

When given a problem to solve, real engineers are going to look for the simplest way to do so that they can possibly find--not the most time consuming, expensive, complex way.

If innovation isn't coming in the drivetrain department, it will come somewhere else.

Who really cares what a team does as long as the students are inspired? If a team doesn't use a single part that didn't come from the kit, but the students have an awesome time and get to learn even a little bit about engineering and want to come back for more, who cares if they didn't create something completely new and super cool?