Quote:
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Originally Posted by D.J. Fluck (and many others)
My opinion is what a team does with their money is their business
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If teams should be allowed to do whatever they please with their money, should FIRST eliminate all restrictions on how teams spend their money?
If FIRST were to take this route, changes might include:
• Eliminating the $3500 limit on parts used for robots.
• Eliminating the 25-pound limit on fabricated spare/replacement/upgrade parts that you can bring to each regional event (since these parts do not count towards the $3500 limit).
• Eliminating the 120-pound weight limit for robots.
• Lengthening the 6-week build season.
FIRST already has restrictions on how teams can spend their money.
The reason for these restrictions, in my opinion, is twofold. The first is obviously to keep the playing field reasonably level. No one wants there to be teams that win simply by outspending other teams (this isn’t Major League Baseball
)
The second reason is that
FIRST doesn’t want teams spending every penny they have solely on the robotics competition.
If FIRST did want teams to spend all of their funding on the robotics competition, then why is there a 120-pound weight limit for robots? Why is the build season only 6 weeks long? Why can’t teams build $15,000 robots to compete? (note, a $15,000 robot could be pretty darn inspiring)
The general consensus seems to be that teams have a “right” to spend their money however they want. If this were truly the case, why isn’t everyone denouncing rules like the $3500 limit?
The responses to this thread and the results of the poll have made it clear to me that restricting teams to 1 regional is an unwelcome idea. Ah well, it was worth a shot
. However, I believe that a rule restricting teams to 2 regional events (and the championship event, if a team is eligible) would not be some socialist plot to take away teams’ freedom to spend money. Instead, it would serve to remind teams that FIRST is not purely a robotics competition, but a chance inspire others in the same way that you have been inspired.
Spend your money how you want, but if FIRST wanted teams to spend all of their money building robots and attending competitions, FIRST would have made the season 52 weeks long.
Side note: I’m curious to know if FIRST would be as large and as prosperous as it is today if older (lower numbered) teams hadn’t spent so much time and money to do engineering outreach in the name of FIRST.
-Andrew