Rant: What FIRST Robotics Should Be, And What It's Not

In Robotics, there are a few factors that give some teams a better advantage:

1. Lots of dough

2. Lots of teachers

3. Lots of Kids

Two of these factors are not appreciated when excess amounts of it appear.

Perfect example of how a FIRST Team should run: Gear Ratios

Student: Gear 1

Teacher: Gear 2

Direct drive= terrible, but i've seen it happen

1:2= ridiculous

2:1= better

4:1= closer

8:1= Student run team, this team learns how to do something useful for their future

I've seen teams from bad neighborhoods, missing functionality on their robot, with kids trying to compete with students with around 1 million dollars in spending money. These kids may be in the same competition, but they are far from similar. The kids without the money are trying to build something together, getting other team's help, and getting the most from their experience. These are the idealist teams, the ones who should be winning the prizes, because these people are motivated to do their best.

There's my rant. I hope this is heard by the people of FIRST

*I am not aiming this at certain teams, it is just a trend I am noticing*

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