[Racer26]

Originally Posted by dibblec

I don't get having a $100,000 budget for a team. I don't care were you are from. How is that in the spirit of FIRST?

I don't know what teams you're looking at, but I can only think of a couple that might have $100,000 budgets.

Most of the ones I can think of? They have 2 or 3 FRC teams which they take to multiple events. The Robodawgs from MI, teams 216, 244, and 288, all went to two districts plus GTREast and Western Canadian regionals in 2013. That's $35,000 in entry fees alone, never mind travel expenses in to Canada twice, plus the cost of 3 robots.

Originally Posted by dibblec

I think FIRST should evaluate budgets in terms of the spirit of FIRST and their actual goals and mission.

What exactly about going to more events, building more robots, and reaching out to your community more doesn't fit with FIRSTs mission to Inspire and Recognize Science and Technology?

Originally Posted by dibblec

I think $4000 is too much budget for a robot.

We maybe agree on this point. Except: I don't think I've ever seen an FRC robot that was particularly close to being at $4000 BOM cost, by 2014 accounting rules, which allow you to count any item in the KOP, in unlimited quantities, at $0.

Originally Posted by dibblec

Scale the budget back and we can help a lot of teams be more competitive because the budget is more reasonable.

I disagree that budget is anywhere near the top of the list of reasons why teams aren't competitive.

Originally Posted by dibblec

Here is one of the rules I don't get. I have seen reveal videos of teams that say look what we built in the off season and they are using the drive train for this years robot.

Where do you see this? It is definitely against the 2014 rules (and every year's rules back at least as far as 2003) to start building anything for your 2014 competition robot before kickoff.

There are definitely teams that work on various drive train prototypes in the off season to gain experience, but I've never seen anyone have a fully finalized design that they built before kickoff and then used.

Originally Posted by dibblec

What started out to be for kids to get interested in STEM is turning out to be almost commercialized in the fact as in life money becomes the deciding factor of who comes out on top unless you are picked to be on the winning alliance team.

You are just patently wrong on this point. Dozens of teams with little to no resources DO perform well and win events. Yes, there are several powerhouses that have big budgets and spend lots of money, but that's not required for success here, its an artifact of success. Those big budget teams? They got the budget by being successful and inspiring sponsors to give them more money by showing what they could do with it.

Originally Posted by dibblec

1) Have two or three drive trains that are approved and can be used, period. I have been impressed with the new one from AndyMark this year. Not that I have a lot to compare to from the ones in the past, but our team feels like it gives us a better starting point to be competitive.

I agree that the AM14U kitbot is a considerable improvement over the C-Base kitbot it replaced. I additionally agree that many teams will find that the kitbot is their best starting point to building a competitive robot. What I don't understand is what you think limiting teams to it would achieve, besides stifling creativity.

Originally Posted by dibblec

2) Lower the budget on the robot, but extend the build season one week.

I already explained why I don't think lowering the budget will change anything. Extending the build season by a week is a no go for many logistical reasons (for starters, FIRST HQ play tests games with team built robots at Week Zero events on the last weekend before stop build, and then often adapts the game field for function and durability before Week 1 competitions.), and extending the build season would only make the gap between the best and the average bigger, because the best (who are already more efficient than average at perfecting their mechanisms) get more time to perfect them.

Originally Posted by dibblec

3) Look at starting an FRC Open class. Teams that want to go all out can. If you are not in open then you use a standard drive base and allowed to change gears. You could still run the same amount of matches and teams at a regional, just group them accordingly.

There are too many reasons to list why this is a bad idea. If you want a more restrictive competition, go play in FLL, VEX, or FTC.

Originally Posted by dibblec

4) Add one week to the stop build day or at least for rookie, 2nd and maybe 3rd year teams. This would just help with programming. How many teams startup and really understand things like visioning. There are teams on the forums just asking some of the basics on how to use Autonomous. Yet, you see samples of very sophisticated code for visioning from years of experience which is great, but how does not always help a young team to get started in programming. The answers on this forum a sometimes vague and answered by people with a lot of experience in a way that a new team should just understand what they mean. Having an extra week could allow more experience teams that stop building assist new teams just get through their code. That seems to be in the spirit of FIRST. Helping others get better. Understandably so, that is hard when we are all in a 6 week crunch time.

As others have mentioned, there is no simple metric like team age that correlates well with team success. Any system like this would give unfair advantage to strong rookies and unfair disadvantage to weak veterans.

Originally Posted by dibblec

We are all coming off of a 6 week build and for some of us a challenging one due to weather issues, but speaking from a young team, I would say it is time for FIRST to evaluate some of these rules to allow new teams to feel encouraged they have a chance. There will always be those who find the loop holes and loose interpretations and go beyond them. After all that is why have them to begin with. In the end it comes down to the people involved.

The people involved are what makes rookie sensations like 2056, 4334, 4451, and 4814 happen. None of those teams started with big bags of cash as far as I know, and all 4 of them were hugely successful in their rookie years, because they all had great mentors that understand what this game is all about and how to be successful at it.

The #1 mistake I see teams make is that they try to do too much, and end up not being able to do anything well. Teams that are less fortunate in the resource department are best served by doing a single game function really well. See: 4334 in 2012, 2200 in 2009, numerous teams that only had a really good minibot in 2011.