[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by NalaTI

Interesting, Your opinions are pretty vehement for someone that hasn't used the new equipment... my team has, and one of the things (last year) that was allowed was using VEX structural materials. We did that for some basic shielding and found that the VEX parts had to be filed and cleaned up because of rough edges to pass inspection, the Tetrix stuff didnt. The VEX stuff definitely seemed cheaper and flimsier - enough so that we were glad we didn't use it for framework materials.

I haven't competed with the equipment or done any extensive bench testing (as I'm not a real engineer), but these were my first impressions. You're right in that my opinion should hold a lot less weight than those who competed with it, but these are sentiments many of my peers share, or at least the ones I've talked to.

That can be taken as a good or a bad thing... if you want to have the opportunity to construct your own unique part, you can do that...

I kind of think that should be FRC turf, personally. If you get a leg up by finding a machine shop and making stuff, why not just go full size?

I'll leave discussing "FTC is good" to the people that have competed with it, but in my short time working with the material I hated it.