| Danny Diaz |
09-02-2007 19:47 |
Re: Batteries
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brandon Holley
(Post 574263)
This rule along with the shipping of the control board rule only hurt rookies.
|
You couldn't be more wrong. It hurts every single team that cannot afford the multi-thousand-dollar price tag required to go to several different regionals. Last year there was a really great equalizer - each team was allowed several hours per week to build spare parts, tweak their control systems, or do whatever needed to be done. The reason behind this is that teams who are at a regional have effectively 3 additional days to work on their robot per regional they attend. 3 days is a major amount of time when all of your time is spent at the event - no school, no job, no distractions.
Now they have decided to take away every team's control system. Now they have decided to take away every team's batteries. If these rulings are not reversed, I see this as blow to every team who struggles to be able to afford the FIRST entry fee, let alone the sky high fees to attend additional regionals. Teams that use previous years equipment to continue work after ship date are effectively cheating, and should reconsider what that means in a competition such as this - however, I could understand teams believing that this is the only way to compete against teams that are fortunate enough to be able to afford multiple regionals (and thus receive the extra time). In a way they are absolutely correct - in effect teams who pay for multiple regionals pay for additional time with their robot, and it's impossible to compete with that advantage with a ruling like this - and that should never be the case in any competition.
-Danny |
