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Originally Posted by Paul Copioli
What exactly do you disagre with? If the limit was $500, could you build the same robot you did with $1,200? All I am saying is that a "big money" team probably could and a low budget team probably couldn't. Is this what you disagree with?
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I apologize, I should have posted this before (I was at work, swamped with customers, couldn't think right

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I disagree with your example of the gear- if you can get your sponsor to manufacture it rather than purchasing it. Section 5.3.2.2 of The Robot part of the manual states:
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The cost of raw material obtained by a team + the cost of non-team labor expended to have the
material processed further. Team member processing labor is not included. Example: A team
purchases steel bar stock for $10.00 and has it machined by a local machine shop that donates its 2
hours of expended labor. The team must include the estimated normal cost of the labor as if it were
paid to the machine shop, and add it to the $10.00. Exception Examples: If the team members
themselves did the actual machining, there would be no associated labor cost. If the machine shop
were part of the team, its labor cost would not apply.
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So, unless the machine shop where you would fabricate the part is indeed the team's work space, or a team member made the part, you would technically have to include the labor costs at fair market value in your total, even if it is donated.
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As to the quality of a product: You say that throwing more money at a design will not make it better. Many times this is just not true. Throwing money at a design is one of the easiest ways to make something more functional. I am actually in that situation right now with a development we are working on. The trick in many engineering applications is to make it good enough for the task at hand at the lowest cost.
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Again, I apologize for not thinking clearly. What I meant is, jobs must be performed within a budget. Say you sign a contract with a client to develop a widget that performs X, Y, and Z functions, for $3,500. By the time your budget is run through, you can only perform X and Y functions. Unless you can renegotiate the contract for more money, you're stuck with what you have- you can't throw any more money at it. Meanwhile, a competing firm, can create a widget that performs X, Y, and Z funtions for $1,200. In the future, who would the client be more likely to go with? I agree with you- you have to make it good enough for the task at hand at the lowest cost, so why wouldn't the same apply to robotics? All I'm saying is if some teams can do similar functions for less money, why is the budget so high?
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We will just agree to disagree about your comment on battlebots. The reason Comedy Central pulled the plug is that it was not interesting enough to capture the audiences' attention for 3 years in a row (same old, same old). We need to get the average Joe T.V. watcher to keep the channel on our competition for 10 minutes. If we can do that, then he will get interested and that will start an explosion of reaching more and more students outside of the current FIRST community. The key to those 10 minutes is flair. We need more flair.
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I do completely agree with this. However, I think no matter how exciting FIRST gets, we'll have trouble reaching the crowd where American Idol gets more votes than the US presidential election, on networks where shows like The Swan are becoming more commonplace. I think FIRST is already addressing the problem at the social level, by influencing the youth, which may prove a more useful way of changing our culture than trying to get people more interested in robotics, learning, and inspiration than sports, crude humor, and corporate sit-coms.
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P.S. - I have been wating for this debate to resurface for a while now, because there are many long time FIRSTers that disagree on this subject.
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Again, I agree.. I've been waiting for a good debate to jump in on
