[Freddy Schurr]

I would like to give my 2 cents on this topic

The Triplet Challenge sounds like a fun and innovative way to get more students into FIRST and partake in an engineering competition. However, I believe that it would not happen for several reasons. One, it sounds boring to have a same design for 3 or 4 teams. I like it when I go to a competition and see how everyone has approach the game from a different angle. “Who did this?” and “How does the mechanism work?” are some of the questions that I asked myself when I looked at about 400 robots all season. Everyone has a different approach to the game and it is more interesting when you get to see how they will affect how the game piece is use. Second, it may be a disadvantage to teams that make one robot. 2-3 Teams that have the same robot design and are effective enough to get the job done can outlast any one robot team. Lastly, it causes more problems when it comes to paying for everything; you got the competition fee, and then everything else on the outside. You basically got to spend you whole entire pre-season doing sponsorship if you don’t have a corporate sponsor. As a mentor on Team 204, I am dealt the task of finding money with students for us to go to the competition and other matters. Now try doing not once, but twice. It is a difficult challenge. Do not get me wrong, we actually have looked into doing a “Niagara Triplet” kind of thing here in South Jersey, however it is a difficult challenge to try and get everyone on board.

Just giving a little feedback to CD.