Posted by Anton Abaya at 2/9/2001 10:45 AM EST
Coach on team #419, Rambots, from UMass Boston / BC High and NONE AT THE MOMENT!
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In Reply to: Behind you 100%..EOM
Posted by Jim Meyer on 2/9/2001 9:45 AM EST:
: Joe J. is right on the money once again.
it was rather obvious to me what first was doing when they limited us to spi.
so we know spi is limited and that might be one of FIRSTs intentions so that all teams have a limited selection. but in the case of the many teams with big machine shops, they can just make their own stuff from their machine shop.
Now many rookie teams have barely a machine shop (let alone engineers) and are then limited to SPI's small catalog. So I question and wonder how this rule would have aided in making a fair playing field?
If first was so concerned with rookies (and they should) then, limiting rookies to SPI makes it more painful to build a bot....especially when they cant fabricate the idea they wish to build.
Frankly, I feel that half of the six weeks is spent looking through the catalog because making a part at the machine shop was always limited in time.
So basically the rookies painfully sort through such a limited catalog, and the veterans just make their own stuff from scratch. I miss last year's freedom, it was easier then when we were rookies than it is this year, our 2nd year, in which we're actually struggling to make a simpler robot.
-anton
team leader
rambots, #419