[Donut]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

It would be nice to see this get back to a competition of design and manufacturing ability, rather than a competition of consumerism.

While it is an important skill to design around COTS parts and pick them out of a catalog, it's a more valuable skill to learn how to come up with the parts that are in the catalog.

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Says who?
And who says you still can't learn both skills?
And who says that using COTs components can't teach how to create the parts in a catalog?
And who says we should be teaching skills rather than inspiring?

There are a lot of technical and engineering jobs where all you will do is use COTS components. I've worked in manufacturing since getting my degree and most big manufacturing companies don't design from the ground up. They buy an OEM stock machine or a design from an integrator, who use COTS drives and motors, which contain COTS electronics, etc. While there are times for an engineer to design a custom part the vast majority of the work in my field is deciding which COTS component or machine is optimal, identifying what maintenance is needed to keep it running, troubleshooting why it won't work, and planning for how to replace it when it is obsolete.

When Senior Design projects rolled around in college there were a few fellow Electrical Engineers who were lamenting about figuring out how to use a power MOSFET to run a motor. They asked me about what I was doing for my project which was working on a small machine for a local place that made military tie down straps. I had to explain to them about this thing called a relay, that you can buy for less than $50 and is readily available. That's knowledge I only had from my time in FIRST, and my career field will have a much smaller talent pool to pull from if we think that isn't a skill worth learning.