Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris is me
I have to respectfully disagree. The second event is more or less essential to our program. You really need that quick turnaround iteration cycle to inspire kids with hard work.
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The question really comes down to: is a 3 day competition with a $9 thousand price tag really worth it more than a 4 month long $2 thousand dollar research and development period?
We save $7 thousand by just going to one regional and developing drive systems. That can be saved until needed like the year after or if we qualify for championships. Keep in mind, that is about a third of our budget.
I noticed that the majority of kids that quit happens during the first week of build. We need to show them what we do and who we are. We can do that by teaching them during the off season. The opportunity cost for developing drive systems is bigger. I really see no argument against development. It let's kids practice and pick up skills, it shows sponsors activity and a bigger incentive to sponsor, hell, it even makes a team more versatile when kick off comes along. Designing and building a drive costs less than regional and we do not have to waste time designing and CADing a drive during build, we just design around the drive. We debug during off season to save time to debug the actual robot instead of the drive, we get to build a practice bot on top of the drive we made during off season. That means more practice. Which means a higher chance at winning. Then the CADs and Code can be transferred over to the next year. I see no downside except for some money being spent.