Quote:
Originally Posted by Cory
40% of teams have no hope of ever getting anywhere near the great (or even pretty good) teams, IMO. The best hope would be that if you make build an open process the teams in the first two categories could have the ability (through more time) to help those "lower tier" teams to at least build functional robots that could meet some minimum standard of competitiveness.
|
I find this slightly upsetting that you would believe 40% of the teams have no ambition to strive for the excellence you compete at. As a member of said 40%, despite not reaching greatness so easily, we still have an ultimate goal of reaching it at some point. It can be extremely difficult to believe in when year after year you don't reach simple goals like eliminations, but that doesn't take us away from striving to compete with every team including the top tier ones.
As a mentor on a lower tier team, I assume that removing a 6 week barrier would basically spread our current schedule over a greater time period rather than increasing the total time spent significantly. Although, considering mid-tier teams would choose to use their extra time to be better, I can see creating a massive gap between those teams that choose to milk the extra time for everything its worth and those that choose to spread it out and take more breaks.
I realize that its a choice a team has to make, but it creates a situation where a team somewhat has to choose between burning their mentors out and having a chance at winning or taking breaks and settling for a sub-average robot.
I think your proposal would raise half of the teams and entrench the other half even further in a position where its extremely difficult to break out of.