Does anyone miss the days when...

[sanddrag]

... we were forced to build our own gearboxes/drivetrains and forced to fabricate or buy virtually everything because all that was in the kit was motors and controls pretty much?

[Billfred]

I've built one robot in pre-Kitbot FIRST, and two since.

Making teams roll their own might make for more different setups, but you also wind up with a lot more robots that don't move, barely move, or have completely wack motor setups. I'd rather teams be mobile and have it a little bit easy than to have a regional where five or six of the teams are having issues.

(I still need to find Paul Copioli and thank him in person for taking the time to create these things.)

[Swan217]

... we were forced to build our own gearboxes/drivetrains and forced to fabricate or buy virtually everything because all that was in the kit was motors and controls pretty much?

No, but I do miss the rotating lights...

The kitbot only truely benefits the rookie/poor teams. Most veteran teams build their own frame design anyways. Transmissions are hard to do correctly, and it sets a baseline: "Well at least failing everything else, you can build something that moves." Again, veteran teams pretty much use it as a suppliment, like NBD's or Andymarks, and not necessarily in Kitbot configuration.

......Or are you talking about the rise of Kittrans, NBD's, and Andymarks? The "buy off the shelf" components as it were. I think I can see where you're coming from here, but I don't see it as a necessarily good or bad thing. We all use the same motors, why not use the same motor-gearing devices?

[Freddy Schurr]

No really, it gives the students a chance to learn to fabricate and do something on they own.