I have friend who works at NASA in sim and test. Let me assure you simulations don't have to cost an order of magnitude less when the gov is involved.

All joking aside you are talking about custom designed systems. How would you design a sim that works with whatever wonky sensor setup a team can come up with? Two isn't pre-challenge VandV up to the individual teams? They should have simed it long before it got to the competition if they were going to. The competition is to prove that it works in real life\bragging rights. It isn't nearly as cool to say my simulated robot is faster than your simulated robot.