Do you think a practice robot is needed to compete?

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by Wayne TenBrink

We have never built one but we don't rule it out.

The withholding allowance, bag-n-tag, and the district tournament schedule ("out of bag" time) allow a lot of access to the robot and provide much of the benefit that comes from full-time access to a less-than-perfect-fidelity practice bot (which is what most practice bots really are). Going to a 3rd district event (not always possible) also provides a good return on the investment in "practice".

The early results of this survey demonstrate the gap between the "Chief Delphi" crowd and everybody else. What percentage of total teams build a practice bot? Its nowhere close to 80%.

In non district areas we don't get the benefits of the out of bag time before district events. Having access to our full shop full of tools to fix issues would be much better then on day 1 of regional while there are practice matches going on and all you have is 1-2 carts worth of tools.