pic: Team 935 Chassis Teaser

[Maxzillian]

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson

I am going to be a bit controversial and say that while the chassis is a work of art in many ways, I wouldn't trade it for the chassis that our team is building with little more than hand tools, standard C sections from McMaster and about 2 hours of mill time poking in a few critically placed (and large diameter) holes.

Every team has it's own strengths and weaknesses. Teams should play to their strengths but I fear that some teams use certain technologies on their robot mostly because they have access to it (e.g. a CNC mill) rather than because it it the best technology to use.

A contrarian view presented for your consideration. Please believe me that it is not intended to in a mean spirit and that no offense is intended.

Joe J.

I really couldn't agree more. There's two sides to the view, for certain. On one hand it leans students to be more creative and flexible by working within the realms of the materials provided and does a great job of teaching them how to be resourceful in making components work with each other with what can sometimes be considered a minimalistic, but effective approach.

On the other hand, having an abundance of resources allows the students to broaden the scope of the project and be more creative by allowing them to design custom components from a clean sheet and use modern practices in creating their robot; both exposing them to the design aspect of engineering and the practical aspect of manufacturing (all though this is by no means the limit of the scope of FIRST).

I believe both are very valuable skills for students to learn, but it seems to be rare to have both under the same umbrella.

Our program certainly leans towards the latter of the two approaches I mentioned. It's certainly not a bad thing, but I admit I would like to see the students "squirm" and try to be more resourceful in meeting their goals.

I think resourcefulness is a skill rarely taught in education after high school, but can often be more valuable than learning modern practices.