[XaulZan11]

One issue that I don't believe has been brought up in the 2nd regional or offseason prototyping discussion is that it can be very hard to get students excited and involved in working on stuff during the summer that they may never use again. While nearly all students are excited and involved in a second regional, you may be lucky to get 1/3 of the students involved in offseason testing. I agree that on paper, offseason prototyping probably provides the return on investment in terms of learning and increasing the chance of future success, but it may be hard to get potentially short sighted students on board.

My suggestion would be to combine both of these and attend a couple of offseasons. You can still do the prototyping, but this time it has a more practical application--the actual competition. You can do anything from tweaking existing systems, completing re-doing subsystems, using a completely new drivetrain, to building a brand new robot (check out 1625 from this year and I believe 2949 from 2010). Plus, you can train new drivers, pit crew and scouts at these events.