Opinion Poll: Proliferation of Prefbricated Parts

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by Anupam Goli

Only Team Indiana doesn't release their CAD files.

2 years ago, Vex had Built Blitz, which had teams of some of the most brilliant minds in FIRST designing and building robots in 3 days for the 2014 game. There was a thread raising a stink about it here. The topic isn't new, but the MCC isn't as competitive as the Team JVN robot was in 2014(No offense to RC or any of the WCP team that worked on the MCC bot ). I don't understand why people will continue to say that ideas like WCP's MCC bot and Ri3D are going "too far". Being able to see cool ideas work early in the season is great for drawing inspiration from and building on top of. Sometimes we need to give our kids an idea of what's been done before so they can think beyond and better.

A very healthy way to look at these quick build activities coming from suppliers and other large organizations is that it can serve as an opportunity for a few mentors in FRC to offer their experience, musings, and obsessions over the sport to students they don't even know. Everyone on these assignments has volunteered their time to FIRST programs in one way or another and now they have found a way that both encourages their business model and a type of corporate social responsibility.