Quote:
Originally Posted by pfreivald
I don't see why it should in any way remind you of that quote. FIRST already has a great deal of rules--that is, artificial restrictions--designed to create some level of parity. I'm all for money and motor and pneumatic limits, too... and I don't see how that makes me in any manner anti-Kanagasabapathian.
I want FIRST to grow; to expand to other schools and communities with sustained, awesome programs where kids do awesome things. The three major barriers I see to that are (a) mentor burnout, (b) brave little toasters (which, let's face it, aren't terribly inspiring to those who built them or to anyone watching them), and (c) money.
(a) and (c) are both impacted by extending build--(c) is definitely helped, while (a) is definitely hurt (I know, I know, people are free to disagree with me on that and be wrong  ).
What I do not see as a major problem in FIRST right now is the top-tier and high-middle-tier teams fielding non-competitive robots. |
If FIRST got rid of the witholding allowance, as many in this thread seem to favor, you would absolutely see the ceiling come down.
We definitely would not have designed a 30 point climber if we knew there was no witholding allowance. We made substantial changes to the functionality of every system on the robot post build. Very few of those changes could have been done at the event with no witholding allowance.
I imagine many others would have designed different robots with less functionality as well. It may not be about the robot, but it's definitely inspiring seeing the robots that manage to do everything well, or be the absolute best at a few things. With less chances to tweak/upgrade/fix things, a lot of that goes away.