Quote:
Originally Posted by Qbot2640
Unless I missed the Andymark item "Frisbee Shooter Assembly" or the Vex "Pyramid Climber Mechanism" it still looks to me like teams have to cut and shape and drill and screw - there's no COTS short cut for that.
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I completely agree. Most of the COTS items available are for drivetrain components. Most teams can now at least drive. And sure, COTS components and community resources have helped on that front.
However, the main reason teams exist for a year or two and then get discouraged and fold, is they simply don't have the experience to tell themselves they need to limit themselves. It doesn't seem to matter how often we talk about 'building within your means' and 'have an appropriate understanding of your teams resources' it doesn't seem to get through.
Looking at 2013 for example, if you're a rookie team and you see the pyramid, you might have an understanding for it's difficulty but not nearly the understanding that a 5, 10 or 15 year team does. So they try it, and in most cases fail. They don't have the experience to recognize how difficult some tasks are.
It's like applying for a credit card and you get declined because you don't have a credit history. A vicious cycle.
A possible solution (there are many), is during the presentation of the game at kickoff, FIRST should specifically outline that some of the tasks in the game are meant for teams that are new or lacking resources. This might limit the amount of teams that attempt strategies that are way outside their teams ability....which seems to lead to discouragement....which may lead to the team folding.