Mentor/Student Involvement Philosophies

[JamesCH95]

Originally Posted by mentorDon

OOOHHH! Life isn't fair I'm told. How many of you squawking that sentiment have access to a sponsor with CNC equipment? Consider yourself lucky. And I'm willing to make a large wager most teams don't. We had one once. But with the economy as it is, they couldn't support us any longer. So we adapted to what we have. And then there is the lack of machine shops. Kansas City use to have shops scattered throughout the city. Not any more. Most of that work has moved to Mexico or China. I started working in a machine shop back in 1974. I have seen and experienced the change.

Getting back to the rules, for the Robot:

4.4 Budget Constraints
R9 The total cost of all items on the ROBOT shall not exceed $4000 USD. All costs are to be determined as explained in Section
4.4: Budget Constraints. Exceptions are as follows:
A. individual COTS items that are less than $1 USD each and
B. KOP items

R11 The BOM cost of each non-KOP item must be calculated based on the unit fair market value for the material and/or labor,
except for labor provided by Team members (including sponsor employees who are members of the team), members of other
Teams, event provided Machine Shops and shipping.

How many Squawkers here could build a robot for less than $4000 if they had to count CNC machining time at $100+ per hour and all materials? (Programming and run time for just 1 or 2 parts would be even more costly.) Very few in my estimation. I don't care if you continue to use your machine shop sponser, you just need to count it in your budget.

Do they have rules in other sports to even the playing field? Yes they do! Ever heard of "salary caps"? NASCAR has a host of rules to keep the cars alike. Do I need to go on?

So there you have it. Life is either the 'haves' or the 'have nots'. The 'haves' never want to change the rules because they would lose their advantage. Seems to work out the same in First.

Well, apparently I'm a squawker, and my team makes virtually all of our parts in-house. Occasionally I'll make a part in my garage. We have no in-kind machining sponsors, CNC or otherwise. We never have, and we probably never will.

5 years ago we worked out of a classroom. Currently we are working in a high school vocational shop with manual and CNC mills and lathes, a CNC plasma cutter, numerous shop tools, TIG and MIG welding, and a supply section of fasteners, pneumatic parts, sheet metal, extrusions, and so on. We have built a strong relationship with the vocational school that's been years in the making.

And you are correct in that many sports have rules to keep certain aspects even enough to be interesting. However, there are still many ways in which those sports are very un-even. There are still power-houses in every sort of competition I can think of. Does it stop the underdogs from winning? Absolutely not. Should the best be cut down so that others may rise? Absolutely not. Should the best teams follow the rules? Absolutely yes.

The rules say a "fair market value" not a "fair one-off prototyping value." The intent of the rule is to account for the cost of an item as if it were mass-produced. This, actually, helps level the playing field! For example, my team has use of a CNC plasma cutter, other teams' sponsors have CNC waterjet tables. These machines can be used to make VERY similar parts, but the water jet is MUCH more expensive to run. Does that mean that the water jet team has to account for 10x the cost of a part that is nearly the same as what we made with a CNC plasma cutter because their sponsor only has a waterjet? No. They bill a 'fair market value' for their parts, as do we.