[Kevin Sevcik]

I still see a few problems with this. The main one is that collaboration on this scale really does make it possible for a team to solely focus on perfecting a part of the robot. I realize that collaborating across state lines was difficult, but I think that would be the exception, rather than the norm. Collaborating with a team in the same city would make things much, much easier, while keeping all the advantages of the collaboration.

Mostly, however, my real issue is that this effectively allows a team to enter multiple robots into the same competition. Once this ruling has been made, I don't see much standing in the way of a school forming two teams, buying two kits and building identical robots and entering them both into the same competitions.

Finally, I slightly disagree about making FIRST teams more business-like. If FIRST really is trying to make teams into businesses, I can't think of a quicker way to make kids lose interest. With all the advantages of collaboration come highly structured meetings, procedures for making changes to the robot, loads of paperwork, diluted involement in the design of the robot, etc. Two teams collaborating could gain large advantages to making a competitive robot, at the expense of losing the interest of the kids. I don't think that's a good trade-off to make teams consider.