[BB]: Beta Hardware

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Abrakadabra

<soapbox>

It is amazing to me how some people on this thread are reacting so negatively to change. Not just this year, but even last year, where the benefits of the new control system were even more obvious, it was the same folks making the same complaints. And again, they were generally doing all their griping before all the details were known.

It is even more amazing to me that these people represent teams that have built their reputation on building state-of-the-art, cutting edge robots. Honestly, I really have to wonder how much better these teams might be if they didn't have to deal with so much negativity in their midst.



</soapbox>

The benefits of the control system were obvious? Maybe to you, but not to a lot of other people. I value reliability over everything else, and the initial release was anything but reliable. Contrast that with a system that had been bulletproof for nearly a decade, which we actually received new hardware for every single year, and I'm still convinced that no matter how superior the technology may be, the IFI system is superior in usability. We're still paying $6000 every year, and now we're getting $1000 less in electronics than before. That's a huge negative.

In short, I don't like change, just for change's sake, or change forced by politics. Let's not kid ourselves. FIRST did not switch to the cRIO because it is superior. They switched because of politics.

P.S. As you may have noticed by our results on the field, 254 seems to be doing just fine.