[Chris Hibner]

Personally, I think the practice robot CLOSES the gap between the haves and the have nots. Okay, maybe this is not true for the real hardship cases that can't afford to buy materials, but I think this is true for the majority of teams.

Here is why I believe this: Take two teams: team A has a small machine shop at the school - your basic mill, lathe, a drill press, a band saw, and some hand tools; team B has a fancy professional shop complete with 3-D CNC machines, wire EDM, and all of the latest technology to kick out whatever parts they want.

Team B is much more likely to be able to kick out a robot with two weeks to spare giving the software team time to test and debug and the drive team a lot of time to practice.

Team A is much more likely to barely finish the robot, throwing it in the crate with a few things to finish up. They were lucky to get any practice in whatsoever.

Allowing practice robots gives team A a chance to get some practice in so they are not at such a huge disadvantage to team B that had two weeks to practice before shipping.

While team B can obviously make two robots faster than team A, I argue that the build cycle of a 2nd robot is much faster than that of a first robot, especially when the robot is built at a meager shop. Anyone that has made anything knows that it takes usually less than half the time to make the 2nd part than it took to make the first (since you learn a lot while making the first). While the mill is already set up, why not make two copies?

Anyway, for the real hardship cases that can't afford materials, I can agree that they won't be able to make two robots. But for the average team that can afford materials but can't afford CNC machines, a 2nd robot is the only way they'll be able to compete (from a driving practice standpoint) against the teams that can bang out parts with fancy technology.