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Because of the vast differences in teams, I think implementing this would not be beneficial. As the question asks, were it to be started what would effects be:
Monetary Awards: I think this would cause a general Rich Getting Richer feeling among the "losing" teams. "That team gets $100,000 to do their program from their sponsors, now FIRST is giving them cash because they can build a good machine?"
Machinary/Tooling Awards: Some teams build out of a garage, others out of machine shops, others in the school. There are too many "Build Rooms" with such different capabilities and ownerships that rewarding tooling may be either not neccesary or not installable. For example, say team 30 (who builds in the school chemistry lab) is awarded a large lathe. Where would they put it?
College Scholarships: This is another hard one. Some students don't go to college after high school, they may feel gypped out of money. Some students go international with college. Some teams are huge while others are small. Would each student on a 40-student team get 1/40th of the "Scholarship Fund" or would each student get $X,XXX.XX. This again would be difficult. Say, the "Scholarship Fund" is 20,000. A 40-student team if evenly split would get $500 each, while a 10-student team would get $2,000 each. Again, the larger teams students would feel gypped. For the sake of evenness, say each student gets $500, regardless of team size. That small team only gets $5,000 while the large one gets $20,000. I forsee only problems with a "Winning Team Scholarship".
All in all, I would love to see my team get an extra bonus for winning, but when games get won more and more by chance pairings and judges decisions, some element of fairness needs to be established.
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