Thread: Purchase/Prebuild - What's the difference?
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Unread 08-08-2004, 00:27
Marc P. Marc P. is offline
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Re: Purchase/Prebuild - What's the difference?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Max Lobovsky
Personally, I don't see where the whole debate about buying stuff came from. There has been no evidence given of the loose restrictions on purchasing having a negative effect, and considering that even if it is going to be a problem, it isn't going to be something that is going to destroy FIRST. So, just wait until something bad happens, we can fix it then. It isn't really as bad as it sounds, its not like someone is just going to start manufacturing complete FIRST robots out of the blue, so I think we can wait a bit before judging.
No, but using pre-fab components gives teams a far greater edge over teams who build from scratch. Since it's inception, team 38 built every component possible from scratch. We worked late nights/early mornings throughout the build season to finish the robot on time, working all-nighters and 48 hour shifts the 2-3 days before shipping, and it still wasn't quite done.

Now, compare that to a team (I don't know of any, but this thread is about the hypothetical implications anyway) who buys "off the shelf" assemblies, bolts/welds together a robot of parts in 3 weeks, the bulk of the design and bug checking having already been done by the manufacturers of these "off the shelf" parts. What's left but three weeks of practice, more bug checking, testing, etc, while teams building from scratch struggle to finish.

So while it may not be a problem now (or it may be, I don't know what other teams build/purchase policies are, only my own), it may be in the future as FIRST grows. While it may not matter to me personally, as I get more inspiration out of the build season than competition, I can see how some people might be disappointed watching their 6 weeks of hard work get knocked out of the standings by a robot of pre-built parts.

I do understand that it makes logistical sense to purchase parts that are tested, proven, and affordable, and I don't deny the benefits thereof in terms of building a successful robot. But how would things like the X-Prize be if one team decided they could (hypothetically) just buy the plans for the space shuttle from NASA, or the Soyuz from Russia. Sure, they would accomplish the set goal, but how would that help our efforts of developing new and better ways of getting into space?
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