[Jon Stratis]

Personally, I know I'm burned out as it is. 6 weeks of build, followed by being LRI at two regionals, volunteering at champs, and now getting ready to be LRI at States is a lot of time and effort, and other areas of my life suffer as a result. Is it worth it? Yes, obviously yes or I wouldn't do it (that said, I'm doing what I can to make sure we have enough LRI's to cover all the events next year so I'm responsible for only 1).

So, what if we get rid of Bag and Tag? Well, then the season would last 4.5 months. On top of all of the normal team meetings (you're deluding yourself if you think teams would meet fewer hours per week!), I would have the time I spend getting ready for each competition (volunteers, especially key volunteers, spend a surprising amount of time getting things ready just so they run smoothly for you and your team!) coming into play during the last half of the season. That's a lot of work, and a lot of time.

I believe one of the things holding MN back from going to districts is the time commitment. Coming off a 6-week build season, I know I can't commit to spending the next 6 weeks doing district competitions (With Jeff Pahl moving to Wisconsin, we only have two LRI's currently in the state, so I would have to work half the events), and the same goes for most of our volunteers. That would only get worse if we did away with the Stop Build day.

Further, I think the limited time allowed on the robot is actually one of the best things about FIRST. With unlimited time, anyone can build a competitive robot. Doing so in a short timeframe is the challenge. If anything, I would like to see us do away with/modify the withholding allowance. Limit it to true spare parts, and require that the entire robot be bagged - you can't keep working on 1/4 of your robot after Stop Build day. There's a team I know of that brought in a new shooter for every event this year. The drive base stayed the same, but essentially it was like they competed with a different robot at each event (and rumor has it they might bring in yet another shooter for States!).

As many people more important than me have said, this is a robotics competition that isn't about the robot. And yet asking for more time to build seems to go against that concept.