Why are they showing us how to build a chasis?

[elknise]

When i watched the video, the chassis they gave us looked really flimsy, but when we got the kit and i found out that is is 1/8 inch aluminum, i was more excited about using it. Personally, i would not use it, but my team is inclined to do so because of how easy it is going to make it for us. Last year we made our own chassis and it worked out good, but the kit this year looks more substantial.

[Bharat Nain]

There are several good things about giving us the chassis
1) Head start for rookies or teams that have lost some engineering support
2) If they are building their own chassis, this could be assembled and the sensor could be played around with for programming. Everyone wants to see how the new software works
3) You wont have robots on the field with an amazing arm structure but their wheels falling off during autonomous.
So make good use of it

[tpearson]

I remember my first year participating and without the returning members on my team, it would've taken most of the build time for the new people on the team to just get a working chassis and drive system, so this is definitely a good thing. [ot] can't ever and can never are the same [/ot]

[J Flex 188]

Exactly as Bharat said, for some veteran teams this pre-assembled chassis could serve as a prototype bed for mounting the new sensors and running it witth the 2005 RC for teams without the benefit of an older robot. At the same time it also provides a solid test bed for the first days or week of build season allowing many different configurations of wheels and the like to be tried. Also it serves to teach new members the fundamentals of what a solid base should look like (in relative terms). Although its small, for some teams having accomplished as much in the first few days is a big step forward.