[Marc P.]

The twin robot debate has come up on these forums every season. I come from a generally "by the book" team as well, and used to think it was an unfair advantage to teams who did have the manpower and resources to build a second bot. But I've since graduated (long ago it seems... was 2002 really 4 years ago already?), and now have the opportunity to see the program from the volunteer perspective. What it comes down to is the competition portion of FRC is more a means to an end. The competition is (as was clearly stated in the opening video of last year's events) a celebration (a means) of all the hard work put in over the 6 week build period. The end is students inspired by learning and having fun working together to address real-world problems, and coming up with creative solutions. Of course, most students won't see that (or admit to it) while working on the robot, or competing as students (as I didn't), but once they graduate and look at it from a mentoring or volunteering perspective, it all starts to make sense. I do still see the gray area, and potential to circumvent some of the rules (fix-it window, programming, continuing to prototype and test mechanisms after shipping), but ultimately, if the students walk away with a positive experience with an open mind towards careers in engineering, regardless of the outcome of any given event, isn't that the goal of FIRST in the FIRST place? (no pun intended.. really...)

That said, my team has never had the time or resources to build a second bot. We've always used the previous year's robot to practice driving (we've always used tank drive, and it's been fairly consistent over the years). I'd also go out on a limb and say an identical practice bot may not provide as much of an advantage as most would think. It's one thing to get used to how a robot handles, and learn the quirks of driving any robot on a field by itself. It's a completely different ballgame when it's thrown on a field with 5 other robots buzzing all around with all sorts of cheering/music/noise everywhere. One robot that can score 20 balls in the 3 point goal by itself would get shoved around by a defensive bot, and would be lucky to score 5 in competition. It's all about the conditions of how the second bot operates, and as long as it's not used to blatantly break the fix-it window rules, I don't think it's a bad thing to have if the time and materials are available. Even if it puts some teams at a slight advantage, I don't think it lessens the value of inspiration or the work put in by either them, or other teams.