[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by Knufire

The argument isn't that removing bag tie will level the playing field, or reduce the disparity between rookie and veteran teams.

The argument is that, with the current system, too many rookie teams build robots that simply don't function or accomplish any basic gameplay related task. These teams then get discouraged because they couldn't build a robot that positively contributed to the any of the alliances they were a part of, and decide that the time and effort they put into this program wasn't worth the disappointment at the end. Theoretically, moving to an open build schedule would give these rookie teams more time to reach this bar of performance, where they would have the rewarding experience that Jared's post talks about.

I don't think lack of motivation or inspiration is why we see high 2nd/3rd year attrition rates.

I think we see them because running an FRC team takes an inordinate amount of resources, both human and financial, and most teams that start really don't have any plan for acquiring those resources in a sustainable fashion. You can get by for a year or two with a couple of people overworking themselves to keep things afloat, but eventually people burn out and you're left without any real way to run the team. That timescale coincides neatly with teams no longer being eligible for the 1st-year/2nd-year NASA grants, too, so for a team that wasn't sustainably built the funding dries up at about the same time that the people holding the team together tend to burn out.