[Chi Meson]

I have only a few comments to add. Most of the arguments have been well made and I don't want to repeat (too much). In short, it's a slippery slope:

Highly modified components off the shelf can arguably go too far, but may be necessary for those teams that do not have the fabrication tools or the sponsors to do their machining. I can also see them necessary if a team finds out, very late in the season, that their original plan for a certain part has utterly failed, and their season is in jeopardy.Whether these COTS go too far can only be determined on a case by case basis. Fuzzy-fuzzy line.

An entire Robot Off The Shelf is absolutely over the line, in my opinion. This is the "absurd conclusion" of the slippery slope fallacy itself.

Many good and great teams had to go through a season or two (or in our case, four) with machines that barely moved (if at all) in the first match. I consider it one of the best things I have done with my life just to be part of this team that went from watching the elims (for years) from the bleachers to finally bringing home a banner (I like parentheses!). What we needed to learn was the process of prototyping and fabrication in the early weeks of build. That's part of the game and part of growing your team. I remember being inspired by the whole process, watching the the other respectable teams at the regionals and thinking: "we're gonna be like THOSE teams one day."

Buying a ROTS designed with the specific purpose of getting the purchasing team into a winning alliance is skipping so many steps of the process and completely bypassing the purpose of the competition. Veteran mentors: you KNOW what Dean and Woodie have to say about that.

My final input, which may have already been proposed:
Even if the ROTS , or a game-specific COTS, is sold as a "kit" of individual components, no more than a combined total of $400 of those components that are part of the said kit should be allowed per team. If that's not satisfactory, then FIRST and we need to iron out the parameters of "fairness" in COTS, and new limits should be set. All ROTS should be banned outright from competition.

This is my opinion, and does not represent the opinions of others on this team.