Teams that do not bag their robots

[Alexa Stott]

Originally Posted by nicholsjj

Tldr: We need to get rid of bag and tag
I think this brings up another bigger problem in FIRST. I understand that the 6 week build season is something that is inspirational, but it does hurt the vast majority of teams in FIRST. The problem is with bag and tag is that instead of having your robot hauled away on a fedex truck, teams now sit there everyweek staring at their robots. This causes a problem I believe when these same teams watch a webcast of week one and see their regional teams competing and working on their robot. I understand that teams have earned the right to go to multiple events but should that punish the teams that are scraping through fundraisers just to attend a regional? Let's look at an instance this season. At Razorback team 1477 had competed at three event prior. Therefore they had 9 extra days to work on and tweak their robot before the regional. Even though 1477 had a World Class machine it was still not fair for the single event rookie teams at Razorback that only got to build on their robot up until 2/19. If we eliminate bag and tag we not only remove controversial situations like this one, but we also give single event teams a better advantage to perform. It would save teams money such that they might be able to attend another regional. Also it doesn't change much in terms of the overall level of the teams. A team that works building their chassis up until 2/19 will still be working on building the chassis up until the Wednesday of their regional.

This still creates an issue where teams competing only at, say, a week 5 regional have much more additional time than a team that only competes at a week 1 or 2 regional. If FIRST changed the rules so you could continue to work on your robot until your actual competition, I think you'd see many people rushing to register for later events to give them more time. Just something else to consider.