[Brandon Holley]

As someone who has been leading field builds and hosting kickoffs since 2008, I just wanted to add a couple bits of color to the discussion.

While I think the advantages to host teams/mentors are obvious, it is definitely more of a mixed bag than a slam dunk advantage. Deciphering the drawings is a TON of work that then needs to be built into a BOM and budget. For me, I also do the materials run each year, which means I get to go buy the sometimes insane amount of wood required.

Often times, what we build is completely useless, or misleading. I cannot tell you how much effort went into building the 2013 practice version Pyramid that was completely useless for anything but aesthetic or scale. It did help the 45 teams at the Kickoff we hosted get a sense for scale, but it was unuseable for climbing. The 2010 tower had 4X4 sides, not round bar needed for most curl up hangers. The 2014 practice Truss was SO not worth the effort for something that was essentially a volleyball net.

All of those projects required dozens or even hundreds of man hours to pull off. It was also pulled off at a time where a lot of us want to spend time with family and enjoy the calm before the storm. On top of that, in many instances, the version we built needed heavy modifcation or complete rebuild to fulfill the teams needs. This meant duplicating the work we already did.

It's a lot of wasted time, money, effort, etc. There is definitely advantages that come from it for the team having some elements done, but wanted to frame the effort and risk behind it.

-Brando