Posted by Pamela at 04/10/2001 10:22 PM EST
Student on team #166, Techno Insanity, from Merrimack High School and Texas Instruments.
In Reply to: Competition becoming too big?
Posted by Jason Flanagan on 04/10/2001 10:07 PM EST:
While it would be nice to even out the playing feild for all teams (pennyless ones like mine

), I feel that limiting resources to just the kit would be a bad idea. Why limit peoples ideas into a small plastic crate? Let the teams with money run wild and spark other teams imaginations with their outrageous designs! It is great that these teams are able to take full advantage of their capabilities! (wouldn't that be nice). The only thing is, yes, I find it wrong when teams robots are built entirely by engineers (it's not always for the better either!) it uninspires students, makes them lose interest, and doesn't allow as much for their growth in knowledge. The point of FIRST is to inspire High schoolers, and by not being able to fully participate this idea gets lost easily, and without teams with money and beutifully engineered bots at competitions, small teams like mine would not have anything to aspire to.
Pamela 166