Does collaboration do good and evil?

[Pat Major]

The Martians Team 494 and More Martians Team 70 design the robots as one group. They build the robots as one group. At the end of the build a coin is flipped to see which robot gets labeled 494 or 70. The students then compete to see who can do a better job of explaining the robot to the judges. If the judges feel the design is worthy of an award the team that does the best job with the judges wins. Here are the 2006 regional awards won by both teams (Team 70 has almost all first year students).

494
Regional Winner (Buckeye)
Finalist (Wisconsin)
Radio Shack Innovation in Control Award (Buckeye)
Motorola Quality Award (Wisconsin)
Xerox Creativity Award (West Michigan)
Underwriters Laboratories Industrial Safety Award (West Michigan)
70
Regional Winner (West Michigan)
Finalist (Wisconsin)
Xerox Creativity Award (Buckeye)
Underwriters Laboratories Industrial Safety Award (Wisconsin)

I think the issue would depend on how the collaboration was managed. If all the teams contributed to all parts of the robot, then I dont see how they could (should?) win a design award, since three teams worked on the one desig

It has been my experience that a design can not win without students explaining it properly. It becomes a competition between the two teams to see who are the best informed, and the best presenters.

I actually do wonder if anyone has ever collaberated on any other aspect of their robotics team?
Collaberating on fundraising actually might make even more sense than collaberating on building a robot.

Team 494 and Team 70 are from the same high school and do the same fund raisers. This year Team 494,70,and 1213 did a fund raiser together, to help 1213 stay afloat after losing their sponsor.