If you could Breakaway all over again...

[Garret]

You need to think about this from two perspectives: "success within the competition" vs. "success within FIRST itself"... though many people will immediately dismiss "success within the competition" as irrelevant, I feel that is an ignorant, and naive thing to say.

The robotics competition itself is the mechanism which FIRST teams use to inspire students. As you know, this robotics competition provides a "problem" which students are supposed to solve by working with mentors using an engineering design process. The first step in any engineering process is to define your problem -- what are you trying to do?

I have looked at it from both perspectives but I apologize that my post only reflected one. I do agree with what you said.

So here comes the controversial part:
Teams have NO excuse for setting their goals so low in FRC. This drives me NUTS!
It doesn't take a whole lot to be a competitive team with a competitive program. If you set your goals high, if you work towards those goals, if you take advantage of the PLETHORA of widely available resources and if you're smart about it -- I believe any level of team can play on Einstein. Instead of just figuring out how to build a custom drivetrain, how about you focus on the problem FIRST gives us, and figure out how to win a world championship with the resources you have?

We don't set goals low. Our goal was to build or at least make an honest attempt to build a robot that could do every part of the challenge. However due to inexperience within our team we were unable to make it great in every part, but we could still do most of the things our robot just had a trouble pushing the balls because the part of the front of the robot got damaged and as a result the robot kind of stunk at pushing balls into goals.
Just so you know we have a team of 30 students (with 80% of them being first-time participants) and only 1 mentor who could come to every practice and only 3 more who could show up on weekends (sometimes). Our advisor came to only one practice and a student handled all of the administrative/fundraising by himself. We also had to build out of a garage. Our machine shop this year consisted of a 12" bandsaw and drill press, with some (mostly my family's) hand tools. The students did everything with minimal help (with exception of aluminum welding because we had a sponsor who volunteered to do that).
Yes our resources were minimal, but when it comes down to it our students (including me) learn a whole lot and that is what matters. I apologize if this sounds angry (I am not) but I do not like when people generalize their own situation and good fortune and assume that it is the same for everyone.

By neglecting to use the kitbot you've done yourself a terrible disservice. The engineering challenge presented to us involved scoring points in a goal, not building a custom drivetrain. Maybe if you had used the kitbot, you could have used your (self described) limited resources to build a better mechanism for playing the game. Maybe you could have had time to modify and expand on the kitbot foundation to better play the game. There are plenty of opportunities for learning in this type of design...

Yes this is true, but our robot was not only about using a "custom-drivetrain" that was our main feature but our robot did have parts for every part of the challenge, we did end up removing parts for suspension and ball control due to weight. Our robot was competitive but was not as competitive as others because of some unwise design decisions to to a lack of knowledge.

You've got gracious down, but where is your professionalism?
Striving to build the "best robot" is a fine goal -- don't hate on it. Pursuit of this goal will result in plenty of inspiration. Probably more inspiration than pursuit of a lesser goal...

I apologize that my post reflected this belief. I am not hating on building the best robot or trying to win. I am not hating on anything. I am just saying that measuring success only on scoring points is wrong. I sincerely apologize if I have offended anyone. I understand your points I am really sorry that I let my own frustrations come out in my post.

Also here is a picture of my teams robot just so you can see where I am coming from.