Quote:
Originally Posted by gblake
Blake
PS: Remember that fielding a middle-of-the-road, or simple, or low-scoring robot doesn't identify a struggling team. Our goal isn't building robots, it's attracting students into STEM fields. A simple robot in the hands of a good FRC team can be a powerful tool for attracting students into STEM fields. Teams that accomplish that are the *good* teams.
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Okay then lets have FIRST do that by:
Reducing costs
Increasing our ability to share machining and human resources*
Increase time people have to deal with school bureaucracy in getting things they need
Make it more likely a team will have a "simple robot" in there hands
Attract students to stem fields and mentors and sponsors to FIRST with more diverse and impressive machines.**
*if you can get some parts made you can reduce what you need to by with cash and thus how much you need to raise. With this build schedule I makes it very difficult to utilize these businesses because of the lead times. If I didn't need to buy hubs or sprockets or gearbox parts or pre-drilled extrusion I could use that money literally anywhere else on the team.
**Building an overall more impressive robot makes it easier to attract attention from potential students, mentors, and sponsors. Why would I want to join this club to build a large RC car? Why spend time using my years of experience and training to help build what may just seem like a large RC car? Why do people only building glorified RC cars need THAT much money? From the outside in it can be difficult to see what that RC car with a brain actually means. And it takes experience to convey that which most rookies won't have. The easiest thing to use is of course the robot. It is the best or worst analogy of what all it took to make it but is always the most universal and immediate attention grabber no matter who you are talking to.