4488 Off-season Gearbox

Originally Posted by craigboez

This has been a recurring theme of commenters in several threads: "Why would you build X when you can just buy it? It will save time, money, be more reliable, you can spend time doing more productive things, etc." I think we can all agree that there are very good reasons for buying stuff off the shelf, and we're all aware of the upside in doing so. Is it really necessary to first point this out before helping answer a few good questions?

The goal of all FRC teams is not to build the best robot as efficiently as possible. Many teams try to learn, do new things, and knowingly do things the hard way.

Just think if some 6th grader would have given you a calculator in 3rd grade and said "Here, use this instead of doing that long division stuff. It's much faster and you'll make fewer mistakes".

That's what the offseason is for. It's great if you've tested an idea in the offseason, but very rarely will a team be able to implement a new custom design in the season and be more successful than a COTS alternative.

tl;dr: Learn in the offseason, apply in the build season.