Human players and FIRST games

[martin417]

This came up in another thread, and I thought it deserved it's own discussion. It looks like every other year, the GDC makes a rule that creates a huge "human element" in what is supposed to be ROBOTICS competition. Why have a game structure in a robotics competition where a human player directly (not through robot action) influences the outcome? If this is a human played game, why have robots? That was my biggest complaint about Lunacy, too much depended on the ability of a human to throw a ball into a trailer. How does this skill inspire students to become engineers? You might as well go to a horseshoe tournament if you want to see people throw unusual shaped objects with accuracy and distance.

The game itself is fine, very little change would be required to get rid of the "human factor". If the rules stated that all game pieces have to be introduced through the feeder slot, and may not leave the lane unless by robot power, that would eliminate the "human factor" and keep it in the hands of the robots. I realize that since the robots are driven by humans, there is a skill factor already, but that only encourages teams to design and build a robot that is easy to drive, and as automated as possible.

I thought after Lunacy the GDC had heard enough complaints about this subject. Maybe I am in the minority. How do you feel? Would you like to see more human skill tests in FIRST games? Less? Or about the same?