[Jherbie53]

Just handing a school a robot design isn't a good idea. If I were starting a new team and knew that another local team wanted to give us some designs for drive trains and manipulators, I would have to decline. Helping us with brainstorming, designing, and fund raising I would gladly accept. We would need to be our own team, which the triplets all are. I think having a unique design, not just in the robot, is what would get people interested more.

Also having students from other schools come and be apart of your team until they get enough support is great, We are currently doing that with Furitport and Zeeland High schools. Furitport is about 45 Min's north of us, and they don't have enough interest from sponsors to start a team. When a team does get started there we will help them with anything they need.

Collaborating with other teams on how to play the game, on where to go for competitions, on a problem they are having, and all the other things besides the robot should be done. I would like to see the local Holland and Zeeland teams get together and go too all the same regionals. This would establish that we work with each other, but we would all have different robots. We need teams helping each other, why do you think there's a Sportsmanship award. Helping other teams is #1 on the list of FIRST, because spreading FIRST and getting kids interested is #1 and helping other teams does just that.

Working together is great, we have all said that, But a team has to have it's own identity. I'm know it sounds like I'm bashing collaboration, but I'm not. I'm all for it, to some degree. Anyhoo, lets not make this a bashing discussion, because that get us nowhere.