[Foster]

I think that the COTs products are great. I'm willing to match wire wrap skills with "techhelpbb", and I am also coming from his background. But COTS parts make it easier for teams to build a robot and compete and I'm willing to put out a thesis that says COTS parts makes it easier for teams to sustain themselves.

The RI3D teams show how COTS stuff can come together to make something and I think that is a positive sign. I think that having COTS parts allows teams to try to pull some feature (swerve drive, shooter, climber) and focus on that while knowing that they can manage the rest of the robot.

Big fan of VEX, AndyMark and West Coast. But there are other places to look for parts. That was the good thing about the early days. "Why no that's not a drill that is a drive train!" Can you find all the parts to build a robot at Bed Bath and Beyond? (Hint, those stand mixers have pretty heavy duty planetary transmissions).

I like the "stand on the shoulders of giants" theory. I like that teams can build on what others have done. But I agree with techhelpbb, at some point roboteers need to be able to dig down and look at what the things are built on. In the programming world TCP is the bucket we can carry data in. And while I can design and code a UDP based system that would send 35 frames a second to the driver station the question becomes "what can I do instead of that". COTS will never replace just sitting down and thinking about the problem and put forth multiple solutions.