Several issues I’ve noted with the INTO THE DEEP game

Even though I’m no longer on a team, I have noticed a few things with INTO THE DEEP:
1. The extension rectangle area should have been a 42x42 square. Right now, it limits designs to a pass through with small rotation, or dual ended claws (assuming you want to intake on one side or wanted to use a claw and turret).
2. Auto has basically no challenge. It’s the standard “Try not to get hit by the other robots” and “Optimize your pathing,” but lacks any real reason to use the April tags or other methods of movement tracking (like odometry pods). The slop inherent to mecanum drives using the inbuilt potentiometers are completely offset by a lack of needed precision in this year’s game. The only issue I could foresee in auto is the baskets, but if last year is anything to go by, it’s not really needed.
3. The clips for samples/specimens are going to break. They are pretty standard clip design, and this means they are very prone to shearing if too much force is applied in putting them on, or if the force is applied slightly off center. I have my doubts about them surviving a full season.
4. It’s a claw game again, due to the “One sample at a time” rule. This really feels like a “We want you playing this game in a specific way” rather than letting kids innovate. Yes, a game with little movement would be boring, but that’s why you add secondary tasks to do, like in PowerPlay. PowerPlay worked well because you needed to have someone handling secondary objectives while the other team did cycles. This game seems to have instead arbitrarily rate and design limited the robots instead of adding more interesting and complex secondary objectives.
5. The hang seems very complex given that a hang is a pretty difficult challenge to fit in an 18 in³ robot. Requiring a clamber and hang is absurd for the power and weigh costs such a system would need. Even using a single hook system takes 2 motors and considerably more time in endgame, in addition to needing the space to add the system. It just seems like an overly complex engineering challenge for 15 extra points (especially when you can make that up with a couple of specimens). Could be very fun, but I’m not sure we will see it outside of silly joke bots.

Anyways, that’s what I noticed when watching just the 5 minute game intro. What do you guys think?