Quote:
Originally Posted by skippy178
My main point is that a team competing in multiple regionals shouldn't be able to take home awards everywhere they go just because they have the $$$ to do so, and at the expense of the smaller-budget teams. Once they go to their first regional competition, it should become "practice only" (non-qualifying) at other events, and that should include being ineligible for the off-field awards too.
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I don't think that this would be fair. Let's say that you're on a team that's above average, but still not "top-tier" yet. You can afford to go to two regionals. At your first regional, the field is stacked full of top-tier robots who win all the awards. You still have a pretty cool robot, just not as cool as all the other robots. Let's say your second regional was filled with teams that had robots "not as cool" as yours. If your team was ineligible to win any awards that it COULD win, it is unfair to all the participants. There's no real "fair" way that awards can be limited. The hard work that a team puts into their robot should be recognized. How and where do you draw the line to say this team has been recognized enough? You can win different awards at different regionals, not necessarily winning the same award at every regional, with perhaps the exception being the Website Award.
For my team, we won the Rockwell Automation award for our steering system at SVR. When we got to Hawaii, another team had a "better" or more impressive control system. However, we were rewarded for all the little things (DBS steering system, vacuum, driver/operator LED hats, etc.) we had on our robot with the Judges' Award. I'm glad we were able to win both awards because just about every aspect of our team was recognized through both awards.
Honestly, I don't think it is fair for a team that is "not as deserving" to win an award over a team that has been deemed ineligible just because it was their second regional.
P.S. I was in Atlanta for a day visiting Georgia Tech and decided to drop by the Georgia Dome for about an hour. One of the first things I did when I went into the pits was find the 1114 machine and see it in person. I wouldn't have had the chacne to be so impressed with their engineering feats if they had only attended one regional. With each regional, they gained more and more publicity, demonstrating that they truly are a top team.