Limitations too far?

[thefro526]

I don't think FIRST has gone too far with the limitations at all. If anything they are promoting creative thinking by giving us so many rules and guidelines. This is like a real world situtation, you have budget constraints, things you can't change and laws that need to be followed.

In addition to that, FIRST is making it so that we have to rethink our whole approach to robot construction. Long gone are the days of the "universal drive train" and classic arms. If anything this is helping us learn by forcing us to design new drive trains and manipulators that stay within the footprint. In all seriousness we've been spoiled by FIRST for the last 10 years or so. The game field's surface never really changed from carpet so we could keep building on the experience we had with drive trains. Now the carpet's gone and so are our high-traction and omni wheels which just gives us an opportunity to learn.

But really, rules are rules and no matter how many people dislike them they probably won't be changed.