[waialua359]

I'm not sure if the solution to the "Out of Stock" parts, is releasing the list of legal motors for 20XX year early as an example.
However, when parts are out of stock that you need, that IS a problem.

As a team that has had in general, more resources to purchase parts either in bulk, ahead of time (without knowing the game and rules), or willing to pay expedited shipping to Hawaii, it does make a difference.

The concern we hear year in and year out are that teams are always waiting to get parts. A lot of times, its schools purchase order processing or team access to funds which make it difficult.

If FIRST, vendors, or the community can do things better in terms of availability of materials needed to build, why not explore and examine those options even better?
The main vendors such as AndyMark, IFI, Banebots, etc. have in general made things a lot easier for teams to build robots in recent years.
Why not continue to explore policies that aim towards that goal?

I think FIRST has really stepped it up in recent years, however, the issues that Sean brings up are still concerns/reality for many teams......whether its a real world lesson or not.