Quote:
Originally Posted by rsisk
Veteran teams will receive a kit of parts and reuse some of the elements from the 2009 control system. Rookie teams will receive a kit of parts containing everything in a Veteran kit of parts plus the reusable elements Veteran teams already have on hand. The official cost to Rookie teams will be $6500; however, Dean Kamen has generously offered to make a $1000 donation to FIRST for each Rookie team joining in 2010. That money will be applied to the Rookie team’s registration fee reducing the real cost to the team to $5500.
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This seems to me like some crafty wordsmithing. The way I read this, the costs may have actually
increased. And, this only says that Dean is covering the cost of the increase for rookies for 2010 (no mention of 2011 and beyond). Presumably the $6500-$5000 = $1500 difference between the two kits is FIRST's cost of the components that veterans will need to reuse. In the past we got new components each year so we were able to keep old robots running (which is very important for Chairman's outreach etc). It's a reasonable assumption that, in order to keep our 2009 robot running, we might have to spend at least $1500 (maybe more, since we might not get the same discounts as FIRST) to buy new versions of the components to put on our 2010 robot.
FIRST may have decreased the dollar amount we have to write on the check, but they also reduced the value of what we're getting for that check. The difference between the dollar amounts of those two items is what will really determine if the fees were actually reduced or not.