2014 Lessons Learned: The Negative

[Aren Siekmeier]

Originally Posted by DonRotolo

I am very much against the de-facto extension of the build season by the 45 pound rule (that's a whole robot!). Repair parts are one thing, essentially unlimited upgrades create an uneven playing field for resource-poor teams. In the Crate days, your first event was where you got to see your robot again, so it really really needed to be finished on Ship Day. Not anymore.

In the crate days, we still had at least 30 lbs each year of withholding. In fact, in the last crate year (2010) we had 60(!) lbs, due to poor weather in the Northeast. Repair parts and upgrade parts are identical for the purposes of the weight limit brought in to an event.

A multiple event model is the one that gives lower-resource teams the chance to learn something from competition and come back and improve. The huge success of district models spreading across the country is a testament to this. However, if there is no opportunity to continue development after bag and between multiple regionals or district events based on lessons learned, teams can't learn these lessons that make multiple events so valuable.

It's hard to debate that the most successful programs, both in terms of robot performance and in terms of student and community impact, run year round. The 6 week build forces mentors, students, and other team supporters to burn themselves out in a short period of time to beat a fictitious deadline.