[Brandon Holley]

Originally Posted by JesseK

Does the concept of 'Cheesecake' extend to other competition programs as well? I haven't been part of VA FTC in a while, but I wonder about other FTC and VRC competitions.

Personally I think 'cheesecake' is a bit too far - but I don't think it should be banned at the expense of loaning another team pre-assembled items, like a cylinder with fittings, or stock that has a few holes in it, etc. I'm all for showing teams how to fish rather than just giving them the fish. If we give the teams the necessary materials and help them built it themselves from scratch, then it's pretty much the same thing anyways while simultaneously being more like a mentorship rather than a competitive giveaway.

Bold emphasis mine.

What I've been continuing to try and emphasize is that handing someone an arm with a hook at the end of it is NOT the inspirational, hard part about a cheesecake. That hook is good for the 2015 game and that game only. The part that will teach them to fish is how you integrate, how you implement, even on the fly. There is not a single team in FRC history who has taken their robot out of a bag/crate, put it on the field and stampeded the competition.

You need to Cheesecake yourself constantly. Showing someone else how to cheesecake IS how you teach them to fish, just in a condensed format where the time to iterate as expired.

#AlwaysBeCheesecaking