[rourke]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

Stephen,

I think the spirit and intent of this thread, to start new teams and make it as easy as possible for them, is excellent.

The thing that seems to be getting people fur ruffled is the idea of giving the new team a robot design.



this goes back to the root of all the philisophical debate here on CD: are we here to get teams to a regional to play robot games, or are we here to show HS students what its like to be an engineer or scientist?

If FIRST is all about robot games then, ok - give then a starter robot, give them someone elses robot so they can compete.

If FIRST is all about the engineering experience, then give them everything else they need to get started, but make them go through the process of designing as much of the robot as they can, themselves.

Ken,
You don't lose out in seeing what engineering is all about. Product design is not the only engineering game in town. In my work, we manufacture the Corvette Engine. We don’t design the Corvette Engine, but we collaborate with the engineers that do. We manufacture copies of the design hundreds of times each day, and do a darn good job of engineering the manufacturing system. That doesn’t stop us from having a pretty inspired workforce and engineering team. This is one exciting product we're involved in. Zero to 60 m.p.h. in under 4 seconds! Yee-haw!!! And you can get pretty fired up about designing and improving the manufacturing system that makes these powerhouses at the highest quality, lowest cost possible. Creativity and engineering doesn’t just exist in product design -- it exists in the whole value stream. Inspiration is created by a vision and is reinforced with success.