What can FIRST do to increase FRC team sustainability?

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by gblake

[*]That helping struggling teams have a successful build will be best done by helping them practice the construction, programming, and project management before the build season. I say this in the sense of helping them learn to fish, instead of giving them a fish. I suggest adding an inexpensive, Fall, annual, robot-building & project management curriculum, and KOP/BOM, and letting the simple robots built during the Fall compete unmodified (maybe allow some modest changes) in the Winter/Spring (think of plowie in Dave's animations). There will be plenty of devils in the details, including avoiding letting too much of the game cat out of the bag, but the intent behind the current 44-day time constraint will be preserved (won't be circumvented further) in a useful sense; and struggling teams will have a valuable safety net. Siri asked earlier what my idea it's. This is it.[/list]
Blake

I think this is a potentially fruitful strategy. The question is how to got more experienced teams to find it in their best interest to reach out--incentives can be incredibly powerful. I suggest that FIRST announce in September that some form of team work will be needed to score maximum points in the upcoming game. In 2014 it was the assist, this year it was getting on the batter to capture. On the other hand, in 2015 a third robot too often became a liability. FIRST should be delivering a clear message about the benefits of coopertition before the build season starts.