[Mr.G]

FIRST try's to be fair to all teams but in the 9 years I have been involved in FIRST this has always bothered me.

Teams that have a lot of money have a big advantage.

1. They can afford to go to many events thus getting more time to practice and work on their robot.
2. They can build multiple robots so they can work on and practice with their “practice bot”.


Proposal:

Everyone keep their robot and work on it till they go to their first competition and then they take it with them to the competition.

1. Everyone will have the same amount of time to work on their robot.
2. Shipping costs will be less.
3. Teams can make changes and get better and learn more during the season.
4. Teams can practice locally with other teams.
5. There would be no need to build multiple robots.

I see this really helping rookie teams and small teams (which is most of us). If a team only goes to one event and it is a fourth week event they are tremendously disadvantaged because they are playing against teams that have been competing for 3 weeks. This way teams can watch and learn and make changes over the whole build season until they go to their event.

Students are most engaged in the robot at the end when the robot ships and after an event. Having the robot around this whole time will allow them to learn more and be more engaged.

Hope you support this please respond and if not please explain.

This is in no way trying to make the competition season longer. I would like to see the season shortend by a week or 2. I would like a 5 week build and at the end of the 5 weeks start the competitions. This is about inspiring kids and working with them on the robot so they can learn.