FIRST's Bag and Tag policies...

[Jeff Pahl]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

A reminder to any team participating in one B&T and one traditional event. Please be sure to read, understand and implement all the rules involving robot handling and shipment. Make one person responsible for the documents so that they don't get lost.

I gave a short presentation about B&T at the MN Splash Seminar event in Dec, including some things to be aware of if you are attending one of each type of event. We have both traditional and B&T events here in MN this year so we have several teams attending both types. The presentation can be found here.

[quinxorin]

Michigan is so much simpler. We're entirely bag-and-tag (we actually started it a year earlier than everyone else) and we're basically closed off from the rest of the world, no other teams are allowed to compete in a Michigan competition anymore. Makes the whole process much simpler. Then again, whenever FIRST decides to change a policy (such as instituting Bag and Tag), they always do it in Michigan first, which has turned out badly on occasion.

[Don Wright]

Also remember, that there are thousands of teams competing...times multiple events in many cases... FIRST is trying to make a policy that will generally work out for a high majority of the cases.

The handful, or 10-20-30...even 50 cases where the standard policy really doesn't seem to make sense or fit are really the minority (like the one the OP made). I know to you it seems obvious and silly, but FIRST has to take into account all the teams at all the competitions.

If the standard shipping/B&T policy fits OK to >95% of the cases during the season, I think it's a darn good job.