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

[Joe Johnson]

Originally Posted by BurningQuestion

Dr. Joe -

I definitely haven't been involved in FIRST for as long as you have, but within my scope of experience (5 years in FIRST), I disagree when you say that defense has been on the rise.

snip

-- Jaine

I really appreciate everyone's very thoughtful comments. It was much much more response than I ever expected on the day before shipping.

I just want to make 2 points:

#1 I never even used the word "defense" in my posting. I am not against defense and that was not the point of my post.

#2 I misstated my point when I said "It makes teams do a lot of extra work just to keep up, for limited competitive value and almost no inspirational value." I SHOULD have put in there "almost no additional inspirational value"

Trust me, I am a HUGE believer in the inspirational value of drive trains. Building & competing with remote control machines that can DRIVE is a fundamental ingredient that makes FIRST work. My point is just that I don't believe that having the average number of drive train motors climb from 2 to 4 to 6 to 16 is really a good investment in terms of the added inspiration for the extra effort expended.

Joe J.