[ebarker]

FRC and SkillsUSA are vastly different.

SkillsUSA robotics competition is oriented toward training students in a field broadly described as industrial arts. There are contests for welding, cooking, HVAC, networking, and a ton of other stuff.

The SkillsUSA robotics competition involves programming an industrial robot to do a specific task. It is an industrial problem solving competition. It would emulate what a technician would do on a factory floor to program a pre-existing robot to perform a specific manufacturing task.

SkillsUSA competition pit teams of students against each other, while solving problems that an industrial worker would encounter on a daily basis.

FRC competitions pit students against a problem, not against other students. That is the founders intent. FRC requires students to learn how to create and innovate solutions for which there is no standard response.

There is a lot of room for discussion and debate, but roughly that is the answer. There is plenty of room for both activities especially since they are very different and both are needed.

You also mention SkillsUSA Mobile Robotics. If you dig around on the internet there is something that fits this description and it is clearly based on VEX products. The SkillsUSA website does an extremely poor job of explaining SkillsUSA Mobile Robotics. I have no idea if they have a separate competition and use the products, or it is just simply a VEX competition with a SkillsUSA wrapper.

note: My comments are not based on my personal experience in SkillsUSA....