**FRC EMAIL**/Announcing Beta Test Teams

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

I doubt it is based on number, but a lot on notoriety and history with demonstrations, quality robots, reliability, etc. FIRST tends to know Hall of Fame teams, long standing veteran teams, etc. will be able to do this (not saying Disco Bots can't, I'm sure FIRST just didn't realize how you guys could help the beta test program). If there is someone with more notoriety in those areas very close to your team's region then they were probably picked over you.

Pardon me for tooting my team's horn, but my team has a long history of building reliably-programmed robots (not necessarily competitive :/) and does hundreds of demonstrations a year, plus my team had a successful year beta testing in 2008, so that's probably why my "high number team" got picked. Other teams likely have much the same story; notoriety in these fields makes them more likely to be picked. It's a shame as there are excellent teams that get overlooked (right off the bat I know team 2502 would be perfect for beta testing).

The short version is that teams don't get respect by their number, but by their reputation. Low number teams just have had more time to establish themselves.

It was not about history. It was about the application, the mentors available, the skills available (hell, 1089's main mentor IS a JAVA teacher XD), and resources available( this usually comes with age). History was a small part of this but clearly not a priority.

Lynca, I too am a little surprised your team was not chosen based purely on proven skill of mentors/students and resources but perhaps this wasn't represented in your application, who knows. But then again, a lot of others were surprised as well. You would have been a great Beta Tester btw.