[Vikesrock]

I don't care if the parts are machined in Texas or Antarctica, what the heck does that matter? Many teams send some or all of their parts out to sponsors to be machined. There are many ways to go about this competition and nowhere in the rules does it say you must machine your own parts.

The designs still have to come from somewhere. The prototyping, design, and iteration steps are where problem solving skills are developed. Learning how to machine things is definitely a great skill to have, but learning how to appropriately apply the design process is an asset transferable to many different types of projects.