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Being a team member of team 522 and a team member just like anyone else involved with FIRST. I have only witnessed a hand full of teams rebuilding / re designing their robot. partly because the robot was overweight / oversized etc. not everyone's prefect and has money to get a 100% working fully functional robot to a competition. FIRST gives us 6 weeks plus the first day (practice day) at each regional to make repairs or to finish building our bot. I think thats mighty gracious of them to allow us to continue to work on our "Creations". As far as tearing one design up and building another at the same time during the actual competition i find that unfair to the teams partners of that match. Teams should only be allowed to make repairs to their robots during the competition. NO major changes in design should be made during the "Competition". You have one day which is unpacking of the robot, finishing building / making adjustments to it, practice rounds. The other 2 days should just be repairs, qualifying ally selection, finals, awards, team party. As far as teams competing in too many regionals and then the nationals are concerned. I see no reason to participate in more then 2 regionals and then a nationals. all you do is hurt the robot by competing so much. these motors that FIRST gives us are not immortal and even though they can be ordered and changed thats time and money being wasted. to perform a motor change on our robot "Dorothy" takes us about 2 hrs. (to pull the chains then motors) and about 50 $ after shipping handling and then the actual price. thankfully this years robot had only 3 motor changes. and if we didnt push so much weight we probably could have kept it to at least 1 motor change. Last yeasr robot we did a change at every competition and we only bought at least 4 sets of motors and reused them at least twice.
Long story short. Teams should take the practice day and use it to fix/adjust/minor redesign their robot and compete with whatever their robot may do for the next 2 days which is when the actual competition starts. even if it just turns in one direction. and Teams should be allowed at least 2 regionals and a national. after that pack up and wait for the summer competitions to start.
Mike - Team Captain Team 522 Robo Wizards
2002 - NYC Regional Finalist
2002 - Imagery Award
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