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Originally Posted by Charlie B
The design/build experience is the important thing, and the availability of off-the-shelf robot parts discourages home-grown design...
But my company is in this to make money in a competitive world, not to educate me. If FIRST were all about winning competitions, I'd say bring on the best components money can buy, and I'd tell the students to get out of the way while I did the design...
The Andymark components can help a team exceed the basic requirements of moving, and have a better chance to win, but FIRST isn't all about winning, it's about learning from the engineering experience...
Maybe the frustration of struggling teams can be reduced by giving them their own competition class, a class for FIRST-standard drive trains only.
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We've beat this issue like a dead horse but I'll re-iterate.
FIRST's main objective is partly education, majorly inspiration. The program is intended to inspire students to pursue a technical field after school. This is done through a variety of ways: completely student made robots, COT (commercial off the shelf) assemblies, engineer designed- student manufactured, and some that are sent to engineering firms and made by a sub-contractor. Basically, any way you decide to do FIRST students will still be inspired because "robots are cool." Your job as a mentor is to give them a basic understanding of what is happening technically on the robot, that's the education part. It's usually up to the individual student to really gain an education out of the program.
Again... the idea isn't to win competitions (that's just a bonus). The idea is to immerse the students into a competition that celebrates engineers, scientists, and technology and makes it fun and exciting. Win or lose the events- everyone wins because students have been inspired.