[philso]

Contrary to what some people think, having access to CNC capabilities is not all rainbows and unicorns. The teams that have such capabilities either earned the trust and respect of a sponsoring company or they earned the cash to go buy the equipment themselves.

Hearing that "the parts are coming in" is nice but there is always risk that the parts don't come in when expected or they are made wrong. One of our local powerhouse teams received their parts the day before bag & tag. I recall them installing wheels and motors on the Practice Day of their first regional. The same sort of thing happens to my co-workers quite regularly but our total development time is much greater than 6 weeks so a few days late is not usually a disaster.