Quote:
Originally Posted by btslaser
The point is that stop build is not really a deadline (only for those that can't afford it). The only thing real-life about it is that people have figured out a way around it. Underprivileged, privileged... not sure how that fits in the FIRST mission. After figuring out how important it is we fund and build 2 robots... it just seems unnecessary.
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Stop build is still very much a deadline, even for teams that build practice bots. It's not like you can bag a pile of raw materials and spare parts and assemble it on Thursday at the competition. Teams that build two robots still have to finish at least one by stop build day. You have to have that deadline in there or you lose an awful lot of the challenge of the program. Without the deadline, you're going to see new strategies like Sean's suggestion of attending a week 6 regional and not bothering to build anything before you're seen the results of week 1. You only have to look at the Vex Robotics Competition to see this is not the greatest thing if you're trying to encourage innovation and actual engineering problem solving. Vex is great for introducing kids to robotics and getting them some practice with the complexities of building an integrated robot, but there's far far too much temptation to wait around a while and check Youtube so you can make yourself a clone of a proven successful design. I really don't want to see FRC follow that path or we'll lose a lot of what makes it a great program.
Also, I probably couldn't participate in any meaningful way as I can't really afford to absent myself from family life for more than a quarter of the year.