Collin, one thing I would caution you on is something that Dean and Woodie have mentioned several times is that ship date is not just a date that we have to have our robots in a crate or bag, but it is rather
a design constraint of when we need to have the robot done. FIRST is trying to mold a real life engineering process into this competition by having a deadline for the robot, much like
having to have an engineering process done. Fedex has been very gracious to FIRST over the years with their donation of shipping, I can imagine that they too have been hurt by the recent economic situation and donating thousands of dollars in shipping is not exactly the smartest thing for any company to be doing, but they have stuck with it and we are grateful that they do it. Bag and tag is most likely a way to relieve some of stress on Fedex to stick to their commitment of shipping robots as more and more teams start up every year. FIRST must have had to stop and think down the road to 5-7 years and think of how many teams we can have and how many robots that is to ship. Personally I see it useless that teams who live within 30 minutes of the competition have to ship their robots when they can just bag it and not waste the shipping cost, but more events are switching to this systems showing it is catching on.
Also, keeping robots back is not wise due to copying. 217, 1114, 469, 148, and so many other good robots debuted in week 1 and 2 regionals, and some before ship date. What is keeping a team competing in week 4 or 5 to just rebuild their robot to do exactly what that team does? I don't want to see FIRST turn into a bunch of variations of the same good robot competing everywhere.
Yes, it would be nice if we can keep our robots and not have to ship or bag
, but the outcome could be very negative for FIRST.
Just my thoughts.