Suggestion for a new overall approach

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by waialua359

Personally, I think the approach is fine and there are more resources than ever to being a competitive robot on the field.
As a participating mentor since August 1999, I can tell you that there are WAY more resources out there for teams to be successful.

Teams that are unsuccessful in producing a robot that is relatively effective on the field is not something that FIRST can help with, other than cost.

Previous inspiring team designs, and vendors like AndyMark and VEXPro are the ones that truly created an improved overall approach to helping teams with more turn-key parts, 3 day robots (among others), and design ideas.
Today, there are way more teams already assisting and collaborating with each other compared to before where each team saw themselves as an individual against others.
I cant see doing anything more other than just building it for them.

Time management, getting the right mentor support, school support, funding support, commitment to success, etc. is something a team needs to figure out.

I'm sure that the Hawaiian Kids have had a huge positive impact on the teams around them. However, as I mentioned I have seen a wider dispersion of teams' competencies this year than in the past as borne out in the data.

What I see is not so much a failure among those teams in building and execution, but rather in understanding the game and choosing a strategy to address the problem. Too often these teams chew off too much, and then are overwhelmed in their attempt to execute. So of course their robot doesn't run well. This year's game compounded this problem because many teams didn't understand the complexity of interrobot exchanges. Providing that guidance, including lowering expectations, can have a better overall experience for these teams.