[patTeam241]

The practice robot can have positive and negative effects. I'm a member of a 'have not' team, but I can still see both sides (I think). They can give an advantage, especially in training drivers to operate the robot well, and allowing the development of new parts and code. I think that FIRST should help stop this (is that what the Fix-it window does, I didn't understand that), by allowing only certain modifications, and forcing you to run at least one round with your original code. This cuts down on people using their time to rebuild their robots, then just taking stuff to competition.

However, training drivers isn't neccessarily bad. It gives teams a slight edge, but could also be done easily enough with the EDUbot or other remote control vehicles. Also, many teams don't have much time to practice. Generally we only have a week or so between ship and the Granite State Regional.

To be totally 'fair', FIRST would need to do alot. Someone mentioned teams working all year long. This is something that, for the most part, can't be avoided. The only thing FIRST could do would be change the challenge drastically every year, so the teams would need massive redesigns. Beyond that, there isn't much to prevent rolling design work.

The simplest solution (which 'have not' teams don't want to hear), like many have said, FUNDRAISE. When you take the initiative to build team with resources, you can accomplish a lot. Also, teach the students early on what they need to know, so that they can design and build the robot a lot faster, allowing you to train on it, and test code.