Practice bot morality

[2544HCRC]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

The methods your team uses say a lot about your team. However, the methods you rage against say a lot more about your team.

I don't care how you run your team as long as you don't disparage me or mine. Too often I see comments about how practice bots, multiple regionals, or having engineers is "cheating". I don't care if your team decides that these are not things you want. That's your choice but until such a time as there is a rule against it teams will decide to do it and you owe it to them to let them run their team how they see fit.

I've said it before and I'll probably have to say it again, FIRST is like a pizza. We all have different ideas how to make it great but that's what makes it so great. You can put sausage and bacon on yours and I'll stick with my tomatoes and basil.

?? I don't think anyone said it was cheating. If we had the resources and wherewithal we would be building a practice bot! and going to multiple regionals. That isn't where I'm coming from at all. I applaud those teams that do and I definitely don't think it's cheating. We had the pleasure of having the pits next to 1114 in Pittsburgh and seeing how they run their team. I had several great conversations with our students about how they (1114) were an example. I'm not disputing what it takes to make a great team or saying in any way that great teams are doing something bad. What I am saying is that the current rules ratchet up the level at which a team must operate to be competitive and drive more potential competitors out of the competition. When that happens it poisons the well for others. It becomes harder for other schools to start and develop teams when they hear how hard it is too compete. If the goal is to get as many students excited about science as possible, the current setup is a little off. However I do think that total team budgets or the build season could be changed to level the field a bit. Have the regionals all on the same day six weeks after kickoff for example.