[EricH]

Originally Posted by Brandon_L

Again, this isn't the real world. We don't pay for labor. If it were real world, I agree 100%.

If I have to tell you to read the whole post, I will. And in the part you quoted, I specifically stated that I was aware that paying for labor was not an issue, because it is entirely donated. Do I have to make it stand out like a billboard?

I did note that FIRST is a reflection of the real world. As such, real world analysis and skills are a highly useful tool. However, they should not be the sole driver. If FIRST was real world, you and your team would be paying for that infinite supply of scraps, and for the labor. You probably wouldn't be functional financially, or would be having a lot of trouble paying bills. Do the analysis sometime, using the FIRST BOM accounting methods for the materials, and minimum wage for the labor costs. I think you'll be surprised at just how much your robot is actually worth. (I conservatively estimate any given Kitbot+stuff box-on-wheels built by a small team at about $9K. The bigger the team and the fancier the robot, the more it'd be worth. I'm not factoring in any awards earned by said robot, either.)

But when you get to the real world, you will have to worry about that. Engineering is a balance of money, time, and quality. (In some fields, use weight in that balance as well.) You can pick one, or maybe two, but the third will suffer. Reduce the cost, the time might go up or down, but the quality is almost certain to go down. Reduce the time, the cost goes up (for expediting) and the quality goes down. Increase the quality, one or both of time and money goes up. This is a real-world exercise, and this is engineering--learn to balance them now so that you can deal with the balancing later.