[fredliu168]

As of now I have no idea why FIRST is changing platforms from VEX to another more expensive one. I have been involved in FVC (FTC) for 2 years now, one as a senior competing on a one man privately funded team, and this year as a mentor for a large high school team. I'm telling you can understand my perspective.

I'm a great supporter of the VEX kit. The price of the kit as well as the ease of use for beginners, with the potential for complex designs is very appealing.

1. One major advantage of the price is the ability for community teams not funded by schools to emerge and be very sucessful. As far as I know, this is not very common in FRC. Some famous community teams in FTC include (team overdrive, 3 regional wins, 2 inspire award wins this year; Sharon teams unlimited, myoptics, angelbots; VEXY things; driven robotics). None of these teams are based in a school, and with the low price of the kit and registeration they have the ability to be even better than school-based teams. This allows students who cannot get school support a chance to compete.

2. I have seen how easy it is to build a basic design with VEX firsthand many times. I once left my parts and the manual with a grade 8 student with no experience, and he was able to build a squarebot with a manipulator in 2 hours. This student is planning to start a team next year.
The ability to build a robot relatively fast compared to FRC by purely students is a definite advantage. This is especially true for senior students who need to focus on schoolwork in their final year. Here in Canada, pretty much the only marks that matter are in the senior year. This means students have very little time to spend on extracurriculars.

3. VEX allows a lot of complexity in its designs. I am not an engineering student so I cannot exactly name everything I've seen, but many solutions to the game problems are very creative and teaches students a lot about designing (just look at designs by VEXY Things, overdrive, NERDs, and of course simbotics and many other teams).
I personally learned everything about engineering from VEX, and it has actually been a great help for me even in my math/business double degree program. In fact, at this moment I am using the VEX kit to prototype a product idea we have for our New Venture business project.

I hope FIRST changes its mind on changing platforms. If not, the school am I coaching will be faced with the difficult decision of FTC or IFI.