[Ken Leung]

It is unfortunate that teams will be penalized just because they didn't know better about building a really strong robot for competition, and have no chance to learn about that at the actual competition and fix it...

It is one thing to encourage teams to build a robust and strong robot... It is another thing to tell teams, that they will have more chances of winning, and ultimately for the championship when robots around them are in worse shape.

ALL their hard works will be ruined, just because their robot is damaged in a match (accidentally or intentionally) by the nature of the game, and have no way of fixing it. Is it really the spirit of FIRST if team's experience is ruined just because of a bunch of words on paper? Are we not here to inspire the young ones about engineering and technology? Aren¡¦t repairing, improving, and adapting better ideas to inspire and teach the kids?

Learning to repair your robot, maybe even improve it after observation of the competition and other robots, is a really valuable learning experience. A lot of teams have benefit from that by going to competition, experience the matches, talk to other teams, and learn whatever they can from all the people around.

It is unfortunate that teams won't be able to take advantage of that learning experience, because they will have to wait till they get their robot back afterward before they can really fix their robot and make improvements.

Since when did we start coming up with rules so strict that we have to give up a good part of learning experience for it?

Since when did we stop telling teams that "you should try as hard as possible, even if your machine broke down during competition¡K You can still fix it if you work really hard at it!" ?

Since when did we stop giving teams chances to learn from their mistake? Since when did we start saying, ¡§You failed. This is it.¡¨

So, I really urge FIRST to modify the rule about on-site manufacturing of spare parts.

Sure, teams can slap together a much of raw material, and try to make a replacement. But other than that, they will have to wait for the shop at competition, that will likely be fill with 40 other teams trying to make spare parts/replacement parts. I am sure the on-site machine shop has similar capabilities as the shop at teams¡¦ head quarter, but it won't be the same when they are sharing with 40 other teams.

So, my suggestion is this. Allow teams to go back to their head quarter and manufacture parts during a limited time. Every one can go back home after competition, make whatever parts they might need on the robot, and bring it to the next competition. Teams closer to the regional won¡¦t have an advantage that way, because they won¡¦t be taking the robot home, while far teams can¡¦t.

I understand that it is hard to implement this rule, and check and make sure that teams actually do stop manufacturing parts after the time limit¡K But I believe, over all, everyone will gain more from this ruling compare to the original ruling.

I am just one of many opinions. So please reply if you have different opinion.