The jury is still out for me.
After attending a week zero event and then having watched countless hours of video via TBA, followed by our lone regional at North Star I keep seeing robots that were near mimics of the Ri3D Bots. After all of this, I am left wondering if we would have seen more differentiation of designs in the robots themselves without Ri3D.
I give all credit to my design team that was lead by Ginger Power by creating a Robot that was very different in design and game play in reference to the Ri3D Robots. Our robot had a very unique design structure that included a ground floor pick-up via a fork design (which we did not utilize at North Star). Our throwing mechanism - a catapult with a very unique cam that was powered by a winch that my students built and stressed with speargun tubing
http://www.magisto.com/album/video/f...8wNSIHDmEwCXl9
What you do not see in this video is how the lead screw has put tension on the tubing and then the student-built winch pulls it back into position. But if you watch our videos from North Star, you can see how effective it can be - and during this event we were only pulling back at around 40% - if we pushed it the full 100%, we would be throwing outside of the HP area with ease. We never pushed the limit as we saw no need to. Especially when we were drafted by the #1 alliance to keep doing what we were already capable of.
We struggled early in our Regional as we were not able to fit the Superstructure to the competition robot - but once we did, we were dominant.
I see the positives of Ri3D, but I also see how it can severely limit the ingenuity of students - especially if the teams are heavily influenced by the Ri3D designs, or by the mentors that are swayed by Ri3D.
I know that I may be a little out on the fringes as I allow my students to make the decisions of the final design (but we have been fairly sucessful the last two seasons) - but as a coach and a teacher, I realize the valuation in failure. And in the last two seasons, 4607 has failed a lot in the initial design phases of our robot (any inspector at North Star in 2013 can attest to this as we were the last robot to pass inspections - where we had to rebuild our robot on the spot).
But I believe in my students, I encourage them to fail in their endeavors to find the best formula.
There is valuation in failure. That is why you will never see me with the drive team. I feel that my coaching has already been done before the regional - I have no need to be on the drive team - just like I have no need to be on the field when my soccer players are playing the game.
Aside from all of that hyperbole, I do see value in modeling. If a team can gain insight from Ri3D and then improve, more power to them. The competition of ideas and ideals is why FRC has quickly become my favorite of all sports - no matter of the controversies.
Goodness gracious professionalism - Billfred [more] 
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