There are a lot of FTC teams with this level of design skills. It may seem like there are only a couple but that’s because the vast majority of FTC teams don’t really have the resources to build robots like this. It seems like you’re bashing the design/fabrication/prototyping skills of students on FTC teams, and minimizing the difficulty of FTC, which simply isn’t fair. Many people participating in FTC do have these skills, they just don’t have the resources to turn out a robot that looks this nice. Also, I can assure you that there are many bad FRC teams.
Not really to trying to link to other threads, but the reason FTC doesn’t seem as competitive is because generally only the richest teams with the most resources can even think about competing in FRC. ( thread1, thread2 )
While I wish that robots this good were built by a lot more teams, it’s not going to happen until FIRST acknowledges that FTC has a similar potential for learning (Maybe even more potential due to the great accessibility), despite the smaller robot size and encourage regions with small, underfunded FRC teams to switch to FTC.
I think guineawheek put it well:
The feeling that FTC is not a valid highschool program in and of itself is kinda insulting to programs where it might fit best. Seeing those banners with the arrows always pointing to FRC always felt really off. There’s an overshadowing paternalistic implication that they “haven’t grown up yet” or something, and it’s something that I’ve seen basically everywhere in FIRST, both when I was in it, and when I was long out of it.