Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. Van
It seems that many people are missing the real issues here. It's far, far less about money than it is about two other things.
First the minor one: Space to practice. Yes, I know that some teams perform well having nothing less than a classroom with a low ceiling to practice in, but having space for a full practice field or even a full competition field is a huge advantage. In some places, this real estate is by far the greatest donation a team has. It doesn't make sense to build a practice robot or even have access to your competition robot if you have no space to practice with it.
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We just bought a half field of carpet from Home Depot that's reasonably close to field spec for about $300. We just lay it down outside whenever we want to practice, and roll it up and put it back into our shop when were done. Maybe $300 is a lot for other teams, but when you consider all the seasons you'll use the carpet for, it's a really great investment.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery
I'm a little alarmed at the hostility at which people are treating the minority opinion on some of these issues. Just because an opinion is not popular on Chief Delphi doesn't mean a large portion of FRC competitors feel that way. It's more important to understand why they feel that way than it is to attempt to convince they're wrong through vigorous debate. I don't mean to squelch the debate on this topic, but try to be more empathetic.
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This too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JVN
I suspect great teams will continue to build great robots, but they won't be as great as they could have been. (If we're only allowed to use plywood, 254 will build a very cool plywood robot... and be very grumpy about it.)
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I don't know, they seemed to be pretty psyched about Skystalker...
What most people don't understand about powerhouse teams like 254 is that even if you took away all their resources, money, and facilities, they'd still be quite good. It's their insane drive, experience, and belief that nothing is good enough that make them so amazing on the field. If you believe that lots of resources, funds, time and practice robots are all that's necessary to make a winning team, there are tons of great counterexamples, including 100.
Why do we bag? Because it's part of the challenge. I'm not sure that removing bag and tag would result in more competitive robots, but it probably would reduce the cost of being competitive, at least for some teams.