Drive Systems... ...The FIRST Arms Race?

[Daniel Brim]

This may be the slight lack of sleep talking in the following post.

I honestly don't see a problem with the amount of motors in the kit as is. I don't like the idea of limiting what you can do either.

When first looking at Dr. Joe's post, what struck me was the question of innovation (the other I word) versus constraints. On the one hand, innovation can be measured by one can accomplish in limited circumstances. However, that can be decieving. For example (as Brandon mentioned earlier), team 118's drive this year is rather innovative. There were innovations back before we had this amount of motors as well. I don't know much about robot drive trains before 2003, but the TechnoKat's ball drive in 2003 sticks out in my mind. Innovation can be achieved in either way, in my opinion.

With that said, the recent drive trains COULD be considered an arms race. However, besides pushing other robots, what else could they be used for? With it so easy for a team to make a powerful drive train, perhaps it is time for FIRST to step up and make it a requirement in the game itself to have a very strong drive train (heavy game pieces, etc), which could then encourage further innovation and "raise the bar" for FIRST teams.