[ChrisH]

Every year, the weekend before Ship, Team 22 hosts a "scrimage" for all of the teams in Southern California. Before there were alot of other Arizona teams even Kingman used to show up. It's only what a six hour drive?

As part of the scrimmage, all robots recieve a "courtesy inspection". These are done by experienced members of older teams. Not "passing" does not prevent them from taking part in the competition. We recognized that the robots are very much works in progress at this point. It does highlight things that need to be fixed before competing.

We encourage all teams to come, even if they aren't running yet. Partly because they can get help and Chatsworth has a shop where they can make parts if needed. Besides if you're like the rookies we mentored last year, working a sidewalk in Chatsworth isn't so much different from one in Cerritos. They weren't allowed to work on their robot indoors at their school, so they just used the walkway outside. We can do that in Southern California (rain? what's that?)