[Joe Johnson]

Originally Posted by IKE

Can you define competitive? This can vary the costs considerably.

This is pretty straightforward for me.

A competitive robot is one that is virtually always playing in the elims and, moreover, is drafted in the first round in more often than not*.


Caveats:

• FIRST isn't about building robots. I know. But I also know that Inspiration comes in a lot of flavors and I, for one, believe it is a lot easier to inspire my kids when we set "playing after lunch on Saturday" as a worthy team goal.
• There is more to making a competitive team than building a competitive robot, but there is a minimum level of robot performance that will meet the above standard.
• Of course there are competitive robots that fall through the cracks. But I am talking about a statistical idea, a sort of thought experiment: imagine that the same regional were run 100 times in 100 parallel universes, a competitive robot would be drafted or drafting 95+% of the time and, if not a drafting team, drafted in the top 8 50+% of the time.

Joe J.

*assuming the associated team is not full of jerks, the drivers are reasonably competent, ... It is easier than you'd think to get yourself crossed off a draft list. I advise my teams, "Be the team you'd want to partner with."