[Specialagentjim]

Originally Posted by Max Lobovsky

Then what's your explanation of a lack of supplier restriction for all non-electrical parts?

How many teams have a part placing machine (the ones at motorola are about a half million and so expensive to run we don't typically get access to it). How many teams have the ability to build their own ICs? Not many, right?

However, how many teams can take a chunk of stock steel and run it in a lathe to create a shaft? Most of them. How many teams can build gears? A good deal of them.

It's level because a part one team can manufacture themselves another team should be allowed to buy. It's much easier to build non-electrical parts from stock. Placing silicon in layers is still rather difficult for high school students.