[EricH]

Having a quality robot is a good thing, right? OK, then, should teams be pushed to make higher quality robots? No. They should push themselves. If the level of competition is high enough, teams who want to win will push themselves.

The best quality robot, IMO, will be the one that has an adequate or top-notch design for the purpose and is built with the best that the team can throw at it. For one team, that is CNCs, mills, etc. For another, hand drill and hacksaw. The team with hand drill and hacksaw might not be able to produce a better robot, but they should not be discouraged. They should be supported by the rest of us to learn from what they did so that they can go beyond where they did the year before and further push themselves in the future.