Purely philosophical question -
Is it more likely that a 5 person circle becomes an echo chamber, or a forum consisting of tens or hundreds of people from coast to coast, different background, etc.?
All groups become an echo chamber around the item they group around. See religion, politics, pie vs cake, etc.
Makes sense.
So, this is the pot calling the kettle black?
Wrong choice of words.
I meant to ask about group think.
Is it more likely for a 5 person committee to fall into group think, or for a forum of many people?
To be fair, there are only ~10 people that post frequently and consistently add to non-chitchat topics. Also, the committee that made this decision is, more likely than not, larger than 5 people. I think that both groups are equally likely to form echo chambers. The echo chamber issue might be mitigated once the student advisory board is finalized and discussion topics like these take place in meetings.
Unless someone from VEX wants to correct me, there were 5 core GDC members until Brandon left, leaving Grant, Jon, and two others that I think would rather not be named.
I am puzzled, do you mean five from VEX/IFI? or Five total?
but also note there is more than just one GDC depending on platform. Be it VIQC, VRC/VEXU, Drones, and future looking V5 Workcell, and VEX Go ⊠Some are challenges, some are competitions, some may be showcases, depending on age and platform⊠Moreover, game design does not happen in a vacuum, you should expect ex-officio or emeritus/advisory input,⊠no game can be built without a seasoned engineering perspective (hence why people should not listen to my out of box game features 
)âŠ
I do think there is a fluid team that works together to design the game ârulesâ, âmaterials/manufacturingâ, âdocumentationâ etcâŠ
In healthy organizations, you bring in new perspectives and that is a good thing. In healthy organizations there are healthy debates/disagreements/consensus that come out to benefit better outcomes.
What is hard for the majority of the consumers in this forum is to believe that their views are heard. They are. what is hard to believe is that they are not represented in person (I recall a post that said there were no students at the EP Summit, well guess what, there were - you can be a student and an EPâŠ)
One thing I do know from the past ten seasons, a lot changes because people are heard.
Back to âGDCâ, there is no constitution for VRC - maybe in the future, so what the GDC looks like this season, may very well be drastically different a few years from now.
I am for a clear ruling on this. We have used nylon and aluminum for over 3 years, and now we will only use steel. Is this completely clear when it comes to hardware? no. A ref can still outlaw something on the day of a competiition.
Sure⊠if it was the same group of people all the time, but itâs not. The GDCâs size and membership changes from time to time.
That is old newsâŠ
I donât even necessarily agree with the idea that the forum is less likely to be an echo chamber just because it has more members, but this logic just doesnât work.
The size and membership of the forum⊠also changes from time to time. And indeed at any time, because anybody can join. So the GDC is a small group of people, which changes from time to time, versus the forum which is a large group of people which changes much more frequently.
Also, even if there are changes, thereâs organizational culture that will affect whoâs hired/put into positions. So unless youâre actively seeking out people with somewhat dissenting views (and if you are, thatâs great), youâre replacing one view with a very similar view.
Could you argue that the GDC makes more active effort to seek out the opinions of less elite teams? Yes. Could you argue that the GDC has to consider a wider number of stakeholders than those represented by people active on the forum? Yes. But âthe small group of people sometimes changesâ is not a response to âitâs a small group of people.â
I donât know what the GDC is like today, but in the past ânot enough dissenting viewsâ was definitely not an issue for the GDC. 
The D in GDC really stands for Deathmatch over some discussions.
Especially because itâs in Texas, probably playing with guns a lot.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/373687550103
If I understand correctly, this screw is legal. It is m4 size, and stainless steel. I have some idea in mind.
I have to admit, best troll post this week. Thanks to whoever that made a new account to do this. Well played.
Shoulder too long
Fair point.
I can make do with this by sticking 2.5" m4 screw (head cut off) in it. M4 size, steel, no shoulder. Comes in many sizes, nice.
That was the size of FRC7498. We did pretty well. Not all FRC teams are huge money consuming monsters.