Quote:
Originally Posted by dlavery
OR -- we have FIRST adopt an even better strategy that makes both the annual shipping nightmare and the withholding allowance unnecessary. VEX, FTC and Lego League figured it out long ago. FRC just has to catch up.
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I like this idea, as it simplifies a whole mess of issues and can drastically cut back on costs for teams (so long as you have a pickup truck/SUV/minivan/trailer) and for FIRST, and also allows more leeway for teams who lose a week or two due to snow or other issues.
Being able to keep your competition robot right up until your competition events would also eliminate the need for practice robots. Teams wouldn't need a practice robot to continue training drivers or testing code or refining ideas for new mechanisms for their weight allowance when you have the actual competition robot right in front of you.
This would have the effect of giving every team a "practice robot", in that the powerhouse teams who already have a practice robot would be unaffected by the change, whereas the middle of the pack and lower teams would now have the added bonus of having a lot more time to dial in their mechanisms without shelling out the $$$ for a practice robot. This would raise the competitiveness of the bottom half of the teams quite noticeably, and would lead to many less "all-they-did-was-build-a-kitbot" robots on the field and a lot more competitive robots, which would surely make the competitions a lot more exciting for everyone involved.