A worthy question, cost of participation:
**We subsidize rookie teams-some can barely get themselves to the venue with their gear, and we want all to have access to this kind of education.
**Covers actual event costs.
**Building and maintenance of the playing field.
**Purchase of field elements- last year it was a bunch of totes and stuff. This year a huge amount of raw material (and a vast amount of donated and skilled labor) to build the field elements (this will be a full-size field, with all elements to be changed-in-out based on official game rules).
** Excess goes to the scholarships we hand out at the Long Beach Regional.
The bigger picture:
Is for rookie teams to have opportunity to benefit from veteran teams and the veteran's skills- each year we have a team show up with diverse robot parts in boxes and totes, and everyone jumps in to help build a drive-worthy machine. Everyone gets to practice with their new machine and work out the kinks and develop real-time strategy, as well as scouting practice and pit-related stuff.
This year's game presents a huge logistical challenge with lots of junk, storage, other stuff, and we want an early opportunity to experiment with field choreography between moving parts and element selection by teams and the timing thereof. it will benefit all venues in the greater So Cal area, and if we can get it streamed, the rest of the FRC community.
Have an awesome season!
http://larobotics.org/Scrimmage2016.html