Is competing at multiple regionals REALLY fair ?

[sgreco]

Originally Posted by fuzzy1718

A great example of how a team with a mill is at more of an advantage than those without: Our team this year spent 3 or 4 hrs drilling holes in our lift with a hole saw. How longer would that have taken on a mill, an hour maybe two?

Practicly our entire robot this year was made from hand tools, a drill press welder, and hand drills. We had only 1 or 2 parts in a machine shop, one was to get the gears off our fisher price motors.

Tell me who has the advantage, the team that can do it themselves in an hour or the team who has to send it to a machine shop and wait a day or two?

I sort of see what you're saying but...

Cory is right, if you need access to machinery, go to local machine shops and ask if they'll let you use there machines. I'm sure they'll let you.

My team went our first year without access to much machinery. This year we went to a local machine shop. We literally walked in and said "we are a local robotics team, and if you would be so kind as to let us use your shop a little bit in the next 6 weeks it would be greatly appreciated." We had no previous connections with the shop and the guy who owned it basically let us use it whenever we wanted.

Another story: After this build season my team decided we wanted a mill for the lab. We went to a local company to see if they would be interested in sponsoring us. After introducing the owner to FIRST and telling him our needs, he offered to give us a Bridgeport mill.

All I'm trying to say is if you put in the effort to get machinery or access to machinery, most of the time you are going to be successful.

It's not a matter of a team being at a disadvantage due to circumstance, it's a matter of teams being at an advantage because they took the time to work to give themselves an advantage.