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Originally Posted by Citrus Dad
I think this is a potentially fruitful strategy. The question is how to got more experienced teams to find it in their best interest to reach out--incentives can be incredibly powerful. I suggest that FIRST announce in September that some form of team work will be needed to score maximum points in the upcoming game. In 2014 it was the assist, this year it was getting on the batter to capture. On the other hand, in 2015 a third robot too often became a liability. FIRST should be delivering a clear message about the benefits of coopertition before the build season starts.
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Yes & Thanks for the hopeful thumbs-up.
My suggested criterion/goal would be "Carry out this lesson plan, and you will build a simple robot (plus driver controls) you can (re)use. Additionally, if you fully take the lessons to heart you will learn how to plan and build a custom robot whenever you feel ready to take that plunge".
Because of the uneven nature of help from other teams, I would urge FIRST to produce a set of pre-season-build, how-to instructions/classes that FIRST standardizes. Experienced teams could become familiar with the instructions and supply valuable face-to-face help.
For new teams FIRST might even make completing the simple bot mandatory in teams' rookie years?
For long-established teams going through a rough patch, building the simple bot gets students' and adults' feet back on the ground, (re)teaches technical and/or project mgmt skills that might have been lost, defuses some arguing & churn, is inexpensive with an easy BOM, generally simplifies everyone's season/year, and ensures that the team will have something to show for their work.
However, getting back to your points, help during the pre-season (wherever it might show up) from experienced teams would be a good thing, and coopertition points to make the resulting simple, consistent robots more useful on-the-field would be a good thing too.
Blake