[Gdeaver]

I'm a little concerned about First opening up FTC to fabrication. Many school districts have very strict policies on students using tools. As FTC was first implemented a team could build a robot in a class room with basic hand tools and not have to fabricate. Our FRC team was forced out of the school district for this very reason. We can not fabricate on school property. Now with FIRST going down this path many teams are going to have problems with the Administration when the go to fabricate with machine tools. FTC was supposed to be a smaller simplified program that resource limit schools could do instead of FRC. Now they are making it the same as FRC but still a smaller robot. In my opinion a bad and damaging move. I hope VEX is smart and keeps fabrication out and focus on what can be done in a class room. There are some in FIRST who are always screaming to open everything up. There are some limits that should be kept in place to keep it safe and keep it doable in the schools. It should be noted that there are plans by the department of labor and education at the federal level that would make it almost impossible for a student under 16 to use any power tool at school. Some times constraints and limits are good. A concept that FIRST does not understand.