[pianotech70]

As a newbie to FIRST and robotics in general, as this is my first season, and in a rookie team at that, I would like to offer a few observations. But first I must make a few qualifying statements. We are blessed with great machining facilities, several higly qualified mentors who are well versed in machining and engineering, and decent income. We are not connected to a school, which is a plus factor in some ways, and negatives in others. All in all, we have done well for ourselves in competition in several of the teams we have active. That being said, I look at a few things that have happened, and scratch my head a bit. I originally thought that B&T was a good idea, but since we were able to build a second bot to experiment and tweak and for practice purposes, I guess the B&T idea kinda stopped making as much sense. We did as others do, build a second bot and so recreate our comp bot to an extent because we had the ability to see where a measurement may be off a bit, a motor not tough enough, or a tolerence needing adjusted. SO, B&T was observed, and adhered to stringently to the rules, but we were able to work past that deadline using our practice bot. Not everyone has that ability.
Being that we are not school based, but area based, we don't have to seek permissions that schools ask to 1) travel out of state 2) arrange school transportations 3) deal with class time restrictions 4) beg a school for funding. But we have our own issues anyways as most of you already are aware can arise. Our local school systems are in very tight budget restraints and our independent status is a plus for us. Our money flow is different, and our mentor base is not restricted to a school system's requirements.
But.. as to mentoring needs, there is a goldmine of retired people out there who would love to mentor. There are people in nursing homes that would love to share their expertise with students in the areas of business, and mechanical talents. I personally know a man who was retired that worked for Ford making cars and R&D on rocketpacks!!! Perhaps some of these folks could be tapped? And some retired people have great shop facilities, by the way.
But mentoring can be a great financial aid where money is tight, to reduce the costs of prototyping a design and possibly wasting materials in experimentation, a mentor may be able to steer discussion to more usable directions and avoid obvious mechanical failures.
I guess what I am saying is, B&T is part of the game, but there are ways around it.... if you have the money and wherewithal to afford 2 bots or similar solutions. Mentors are out there, but maybe we need to look in unusual places to find unusual mentors. And utilization of our resources greatly depends on the individual constraints of each individual team. No silver bullet is going to fix all or even most of the problems. I kinda like the dual tier ideas being passed around.
Just my piddling two cents worth from a newbie.