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Unread 17-03-2015, 14:58
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AKA: Richard McCann
FRC #1678 (Citrus Circuits)
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Re: Dangerous precedent set by Q&A 461: Loaning Parts/Assemblies to other teams

Quote:
Originally Posted by thrystan View Post
What would happen if, a rookie team came to you, or one of the other high ranked teams, on the first day of the competition, and said. We only have a drive base, what can we add to it to help you in the finals. We would like to build a can burglar, create an auto that helps score the robot team points, and build a ramp or two that will help your team in the finals. Will you help us do it.

I think this is a perfect opportunity for a team with no hopes of winning, and no plans on going past one or two districts or regionals, to have a much better event that they could have realistically planned on having with another game.

I agree with many people that it seems wrong to grab a low ranked team and turn them into a ramp anchor. But is it different if that team takes the initiative and does it themselves. Especially if they start on it on the first day and instead of just being a ramp anchor, they can also grab a couple of cans in auto, and then move to the auto zone, before being driven to sit in a safe out of the way place. At least they are doing something then.
This is almost the model that we used last year at Champs. The difference is that we approached two rookie teams that we had seen in video review and we offered to help them create a mechanism that would make them a strong contributor to their alliances and even put them in place to be on an alliance. We gave each of the teams extra parts that we had brought along. Those teams improved from their regionals to 5-5 and 4-6 in the Newton Division--at one point one of them was 5-1 and was in contention for highest ranked rookie up to the 9th match. It was perhaps the single most satisfying effort we had last year. We would do it in a heartbeat again. (I personally donated $1,000 to one of the teams this year.)
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