Great robots..Is it fair?

[BornaE]

Originally Posted by Don1498

Hello Everyone

Well, I wanted to say that 2008 Greater Toronto regional was good as always. But I had couple of feedback for this regional. As you all know that which ever competition 1114 enters ends up winning? The question is that is it fair to all other teams? I guess not. The reason being is since 1114 has engineers giving them good idea and stuff. All their students have to do is make a product out of it. I am 100 % sure that it’s not all students doing it. But on the other hand the teams who have less resources and money and sponsors or maybe they just had a bad year. What will they think? Perhaps thinking that they don’t have to try since they know no matter how much they try 1114 is going to take the competition away from them. If someone here thinks that 1114 student are smart to make a machine which they have right now I think first robotics competition isn’t the place to be. Maybe they should be sitting at MIT. So my suggestion is FIRST robotics Canada should consider having 2 divisions such as 1 for all “good teams” such as 1114 and one division B such as some weak teams who don’t have enough resources to get make their robot. So if someone from division b wins they get to be moved into division a for some challenging teams How is this important? Well it’s a good idea and plus wont discourage all other teams to who don’t have enough funding.

What do other people think on this matter?

Donald

I don't share your opinion.

On our team we have 2 mentors and 8 students this year. one of the mentors is an electrical engineer, and the other one was a doctor, and he is a self taught machinist. And if you have seen our robot, more or less we can compete with 1114 this year, and last year, we had a good robot.

FIRST is about gracious professionalism and sportsmanship, it is about powerful, and well-established teams, graciously helping and mentoring the rest of the teams. A double division competition defeats the purpose of FIRST.