If you could change one rule - eliminate ship requirement discussion

[Andy Baker]

OK, here is an interesting rule change. Changing this rule would give us these positives:

• save over $1 million in team costs
• eliminate the need to build "practice" robots
• eliminate countless spare parts
• increase the level of play in FIRST
• allow software and autonomous development to flourish
• eliminate the need for crates (for 90% of teams)
• give teams more time to work on the robot

However, this rule change would also result in these negative aspects:

• enable teams to create "copycat" designs of winning robots
• provide another disadvantage to teams who live far from regionals
• eliminate the "back to normal" time after the ship date
• give teams more time to work on the robot (yes, it is a negative too)
• robot loading on Thursday morning would need to be coordinated differently

Eliminate the ship date. That would be one HUGE rule change.

Over the years, I have wavered on this issue. However, I strongly feel that the positives outweigh the negatives now. With the added importance of software development and the increase of teams who build a second robot every year, we might as well just keep the robots with us to the events.

Andy B.