Quote:
Originally Posted by animenerdjohn
All FIRST is doing is making us spend twice as much money to stay competitive.
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I think its fair to say that there are many mechanisms within FIRST in which more money can help with success. Larger teams can be more successful than smaller teams, and they cost more to feed/clothe/travel with. Going to more regionals increases your competitiveness, but can drastically increase your annual budget requirements. And yes, as you mention, building two robots costs more... but you also get to give students even more hands on time assembling and testing. Most teams will have some form of a constraint to work around, whether it is financial, build space access, number of mentors, commitment of students, parent/teacher support, etc. Should we not cap all of these things as well, so a team doesn't have an advantage because they have 10 engineers working as mentors while another team has 2?
I know it isn't 100% fair that teams with more money can be more successful, but in order to implement "balancing" you essentially end up capping the amount that can be donated to a team. If a larger sponsor or larger team is able to support the additional cost, and inspire students in the process, I don't see a reason to artificially limit teams for the sake of fairness. There are already a number of "KOP" style competitions that cater to those seeking a pure technical challenge where the goal is to build the best product you can out of a very limited number of parts, with limited input from adults. They fill a role, but the intent is different than the mission of FIRST.
Steven