pic: Team 221 LLC. - Wild Swerve Module

Originally Posted by Jared341

What industry do you know of where the competition never gains access to new and previously unattainable technologies and the leaders never have to worry about stepping up their game?

This is your opinion, and I respect it, but I have to completely disagree. The goal of FIRST is inspiration. Anyone who tells you that watching a LEGO League robot is 100% as inspiring as watching 1114 hurdle trackballs, 67 fill a trailer, or 25 light up the high goal is lying. The size, speed, and power of full sized FRC robots are much more sublime. People go to the zoo to see the lions and tigers, not the ants.

Inspiration is showing what true professionals can do and lighting enough of the way so that students can connect the dots between their lives and the life of a professional engineer. College and hands-on training will get them there; we only need to show them the way.

Never made a claim about stagnant industries. And I never said it would be AS inspiring, but rather could still be inspiring. If not so, then why do we have FLL? Is it not a jumping point to farm interest for FRC teams?

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Craig, do you feel that this in any way negatively impacts the inspirational aspects of FIRST?

Nope. The inspiration of FIRST has grown to such a momentous pace that it would take something fairly catastrophic to change that. However, the more we standardize kit components, and make components and mechanisms easily available, the more we will standardize the games. This year was a wonderful example of that: A field full of driving boxes with trailers. The innovation was still there, but much less so than, say, 2005. Robots of all shapes and sizes opened my eyes to the possibilities that properly engineering a robot can bring far more than any of the recent driving refrigerators have.