[nparikh]

In answering the question of what we are trying to show teams whom we help with the autonomous / hybrid period--we are showing them that help is here. We are showing them that FIRST is not a dog eat dog world in which only the strong survive. In fact, we take pride in the fact that we are different than other competition sports. Our goal is not to promote Darwinism [or so I hope].

Like others have mentioned, not everyone has the same level of support. Some teams have software and electrical engineers to help them and others do not.

Instead, I feel that by helping such teams, we are teaching them an important lesson--to make the best of what you can. Starting out, you won't always have the resources, the support, the knowhow to do everything that you want to--but provided that this challenge is executed properly [by really showing them how to do such a thing rather than just "dumping code"]--newer teams especially will benefit by learning the lesson that FIRST is different; that teams help one another for the benefit of the community at large.

And so if you teach a a programmer how to implement some code to get their robot running and perhaps leave some contact information and resources for them to get more help, I do believe that they will have learned something. Sure, they might not be an expert robot programmer in the time you've helped them, but they have learned that help is there and they have learned where to look for it. And learning something is never a bad thing in my book.