[Taylor]

I do believe the FIRST family of programs does do a good job of exposing students to the fact that globalization and localization does in fact exist. Teams are encouraged to utilize their local resources (harvesting motors from local junkyards, part fabrication from nearby sponsors) as well as source materials and parts from global suppliers (McMaster-Carr and the like). Teams are tasked with tracking these through the Bill of Materials.
So each team does have an opportunity to discuss the origin of the parts used on the robot, and each team has the opportunity to source parts locally.
I'd think that if a team did create an elegant, effective design using only locally sourced materials, and could present that fact effectively, judges could be very interested to hear about that.