[jman4747]

Originally Posted by MrForbes

Thanks for taking the time to explain your view of FRC. I'm still pondering the mission of FRC...



I think maybe that's why the rules are as they are? It is not easy to change large robots, and continuous improvement for many FRC teams would be prohibitively expensive and time consuming. If you get it way wrong the first time, you pretty much have to start over. Since I am not convinced that having every team build a top notch robot is the point of FRC, the existing rules make sense to me.

As far as making FRC into a sport that the public will want to watch in droves...I am not so sure about it being a reasonable goal. I also do some drag racing, and I've seen how to get folks interested in watching the sport--it's called Street Outlaws. The robot equivalent is Battlebots, but it would need a lot more soap opera content to get folks really into it.

Culture change is a difficult thing.

Software and drive practice are able to improve without spending money. Software improvements can be written at home and tested maybe once or twice a week in between competitions or in the time before your only one. Drivers could practice some between too but neither task requires any more time than anyone wants to spend. Both would help a team at competition.

If you have to start over but can't build a complete robot than you can practice defense and fund raise without being automatically out because you learned your manipulator wasn't any good too late.

FRC matches are fun to watch for uninformed spectators when something is going on. I don't think anyone will televise a strait FRC event featuring just matches. But we will get people looking longer when more robots are moving and completing meaningful tasks.