pic: Team 221 LLC. - Wild Swerve Module

[Cory]

Originally Posted by CraigHickman

Kits like these dull the value of that education immensely, and a level playing field does nothing to mimic the real world. There are always engineering companies with better tools, more funding, and better employees than you in the real world. Learning to improvise and compete with what you have, not with a standardized kit will train you more for the real world.

The goal of FIRST can be met with a set of legos, the robot is just a medium. But the education that comes with it, that is truly special.

Craig,

The real world is all about integrating what you have, or can easily make with what you can buy. How is this any different?

Teams are forced to weigh the benefits of a COTS system which requires little manufacturing time/effort vs full scale development of their own systems.

In real life if you can use a COTS item in place of a custom one, you do it. If you don't, your company is losing money, and you are failing to do your job as an engineer.

In my eyes, if the goal is to inspire students to become engineers, we want to teach them engineering. Things like drafting and machining are great, and basic knowledge of them is essential in becoming an engineer, but being an engineer is very different than being a machinist or a drafter. It seems like the method you propose is much more along the lines of saying we should teach the students how to CAD and machine their own designs, starting with nothing, and going all the way to the finished product.

Engineers are "concerned with developing economical and safe solutions to practical problems, by applying mathematics and scientific knowledge while considering technical constraints". In the real world, the #1 constraint is cost. If it costs too much, you didn't do your job. Basically what I'm trying to say is that making the coolest mechanism in the world that perfectly achieves the functionality of whatever device you are designing does not necessarily mean one would be a "good" engineer. If said device costs 10x more to manufacture than a simpler solution integrating COTS parts, and only performs 10% better, that's poor engineering.