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Originally Posted by wireties
sometimes a bad thing—or at least not uniformly a good thing - really?
One could make that statement about all matters involving one or more humans - it means nothing.
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Here's a very straightforward example. Sometimes it is overall less economically efficient to expend resources in a competitive bid process, than it would be to simply award the work to a particular vendor. Tendering it is therefore a "bad thing" under those circumstances. (I said not uniformly good, to qualify the remark, because perhaps some good can still come out of a net loss.)
I gathered from your previous post that you were describing the similarity to a competitive bid as an example of FIRST mirroring good real-world practice. I'm merely saying that competitive bidding isn't necessarily something worth emulating in a robotics competition, because it is not a good thing
a priori. (And yes, you can say that about anything—that's why the discussion needs to go beyond what people usually do in the real world, and instead cover why they do it, and what the consequences are.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by wireties
That is not the net result. Performing for a grossly inadequate rate puts one out of business and/or likely not to make the same mistake again.
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Sure; but that's not really a point of contention, is it? One can work to change others' perceptions in any situation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wireties
And in FIRST, the troll-bot teams will likely modify their risk assessment methodologies next year.
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They probably will. But was teaching them the lesson in this fashion productive?
Do they have reason to feel mistreated or misled? Does it matter to FIRST that they might feel that way, as a result of FIRST's statements? (And should it matter?)