Opinion Poll: Proliferation of Prefbricated Parts

[Navid Shafa]

Originally Posted by Ekcrbe

The day a team decides not to fight the closing of their shop because "well, we can get everything we need from COTS components anyway," I'll eat my robot.

Our rookie team has designed strongly around VexPro and COTS components. While this makes it much easier for a team without access to a permanent shop-space yet easier, we still have our fair share of challenges.

It's rather impressive how far COTS components have gone over the last few years and how many options are currently available. I see this continued advancment as doing wonders for the lower resource and lower to mid-tier teams. So many people talk about wanting to "Raise the floor" of FRC. In my mind, this is arguably the easiest way to do it. As long as resources are available teaching teams how to properly design for and implement these resources, COTS components have a very significant capacity to "Inspire" more students. Having working subsystems and a functional robot that allow a team to play the game is inspiring.

Not every team has access to an engineering mentor. COTS components and knowledge on how to use them allow these teams to close the gap.