District/Regional Format

[Don Wright]

Originally Posted by BrendanB

Collin, one thing I would caution you on is something that Dean and Woodie have mentioned several times is that ship date is not just a date that we have to have our robots in a crate or bag, but it is rather a design constraint of when we need to have the robot done.

Also, keeping robots back is not wise due to copying. 217, 1114, 469, 148, and so many other good robots debuted in week 1 and 2 regionals, and some before ship date. What is keeping a team competing in week 4 or 5 to just rebuild their robot to do exactly what that team does? I don't want to see FIRST turn into a bunch of variations of the same good robot competing everywhere.

Yes, it would be nice if we can keep our robots and not have to ship or bag , but the outcome could be very negative for FIRST.
Just my thoughts.

I understand what you are saying, but I also don't think it's as big of a problem as you might think. Right now, teams that have the resources (manpower, machines, money, etc.) to copy, will already have a practice robot, and the drive to continually improve their robot throughout the season. Our robot is never done...until we put it in the trailer after IRI...maybe. These are the teams that would have the resources to copy other robots...if they wanted...and would do so anyway. And it doesn't really happen that much.