Team Update 14 (2016)

[Hallry]

https://firstfrc.blob.core.windows.net/frc2016manuals/TeamUpdates/14.pdf

[Basel A]

That is, in my opinion, an incredibly stupid rule change. For one thing, nobody can agree on what a robot is, and therefore it can only cause undue controversy (as if we needed any more). Additionally, the only time a team would do this was week 0.5, so it's a bit of a moot point. Finally, if some team did bag their practise robot for a non-week 0.5 event, this totally screws them over. I do not like this one bit.

[PayneTrain]

Check back later when someone has spent the time or money to circumvent this and another rule is made that still leaves the door open for someone to spend time or money to circumvent it just to see another rule made that...

[cmwilson13]

they need to get rid of the bag and tag it just benefits teams that can afford to build 2 robots.

my team among that teams that build 2 robots i want to be able to spend that money elsewhere

[cadandcookies]

In case anyone is wondering what specific drawings are being referenced:

GE-16019 on GE-16023 are the dividers between the defences

GE-16028 is the Cheval de Frise platform

GE-16038 is the Sally Port door assembly

GE-16178 is the Cheval de Frise platform assembly

GE-16181 and GE-16184 are the cleats at the bottom of the batter

GE-16185 is one of the batter segments

GE-16213 is the "roof" of the tower

and GE-16241 is a spacer for a U-bolt

[marshall]

Ohh well... Rule 5.5.900... ;)

[Richard Wallace]

That is, in my opinion, an incredibly stupid rule change.... I do not like this one bit.

Check back later when someone has spent the time or money to circumvent this and another rule is made that still leaves the door open for someone to spend time or money to circumvent it just to see another rule made that...Are you talking about the blue box in 5.5.2?

[Alan Anderson]

I do not like the new blue box explanation of what "enter" means. I understand it, and I largely agree with what it is trying to do, but I don't believe it is right to twist the intent of the original in order to do it. The issue of a "spare parts robot" should have been addressed explicitly instead of wedged in to an unrelated spot.

[Kevin Sevcik]

Oh frabjous day! Finally we can just use any pressure regulator that's stopped down to 60 psi instead of having to find one that is both rated for 120 psi and has a maximum output pressure of 60 psi.

[marshall]

The issue of a "spare parts robot" should have been addressed explicitly instead of wedged in to an unrelated spot.

To do that would be to acknowledge openly that the 6 week build season is a myth and that many teams have them.

[BrendanB]

Ohh well... Rule 5.5.900... ;)

Care to explain? ;)

I agree the wording of this ruling is a little weird and would like a better wording of bringing it to the event and what does that constitute. Does an event mean a specific venue or larger like the campus an event is taking place at? There are definitely some characters in FRC who could give teams a hard time depending on how they interpreted that rule and it becomes a different issue when you are traveling from a great distance to an event and won't know how your robot faired until you get there.

[IronicDeadBird]

So now instead of making an extra robot and putting it together and then bagging it we just make an extra robot don't put it together and have those parts bagged?

[marshall]

So now instead of making an extra robot and putting it together and then bagging it we just make an extra robot don't put it together and have those parts bagged?

But thou shalt not assemble them into the form of a robot while at the event or place them in a configuration that to a "reasonably astute observer" could resemble a robot.

[IronicDeadBird]

But thou shalt not assemble them into the form of a robot while at the event or place them in a configuration that to a "reasonably astute observer" could resemble a robot.

Transformers robots in disguise...

[AllenGregoryIV]

But thou shalt not assemble them into the form of a robot while at the event or place them in a configuration that to a "reasonably astute observer" could resemble a robot.

Can we ban the words "reasonably astute observer" forever. It's a bandaid when you can't come up with a concrete rule and shouldn't be in the rule book.
I would rather them say "Hey if you push this rule, HQ might tell you it's illegal. Its a risk you are taking." That's basically what it means.

[Kevin Sevcik]

I do not like the new blue box explanation of what "enter" means. I understand it, and I largely agree with what it is trying to do, but I don't believe it is right to twist the intent of the original in order to do it. The issue of a "spare parts robot" should have been addressed explicitly instead of wedged in to an unrelated spot.I actually impounded a spare robot as Lonestar LRI once. A team brought it in on Thursday morning to remove part of it for their competition robot. Since it was well over the withholding allowance, I told them to pull whatever they wanted or thought they needed right away (under withholding limits), then impounded the remainder for the rest of the regional. On account of the examples of it being illegal to keep a collection of spares in the parking lot and bring them in one at a time. They were understandably grumpy that they couldn't just leave it in their trailer instead of me impounding it, but I'd been approached by people concerned that they'd brought an ENTIRE spare robot. So I had to deal with appearances as well as actual rules at that point. I'm pretty sure Norm's forgiven me by now.

All of which is to say that practice robots, spare parts, and withholding allowances make for lots of complications. While the 5.5.2 blue box is a little clumsy, a separate rule would likely be just as awkward to cover cases like bringing a practice robot to practice with but not use for parts. You couldn't possibly cover that case with any other existing rule, but writing up a rule for that specific case would likely miss others that I haven't thought of. The blue box entirely rules out bringing a practice robot to help your team in any fashion, bagged or not, which is just a more general case of the specific case above.

Also, does the 5.5.2 blue box have some sort of unintended, deleterious consequences? It doesn't seem so to me, so it seems like a pretty good update.

[Kevin Sevcik]

Can we ban the words "reasonably astute observer" forever. It's a bandaid when you can't come up with a concrete rule and shouldn't be in the rule book.
I would rather them say "Hey if you push this rule, HQ might tell you it's illegal. Its a risk you are taking." That's basically what it means."Reasonably astute observer" = Whoever's in the HQ hot seat this weekend. You'd better hope they've had their coffee this morning.

[AllenGregoryIV]

I actually impounded a spare robot as Lonestar LRI once. A team brought it in on Thursday morning to remove part of it for their competition robot. Since it was well over the withholding allowance, I told them to pull whatever they wanted or thought they needed right away (under withholding limits), then impounded the remainder for the rest of the regional. On account of the examples of it being illegal to keep a collection of spares in the parking lot and bring them in one at a time. They were understandably grumpy that they couldn't just leave it in their trailer instead of me impounding it, but I'd been approached by people concerned that they'd brought an ENTIRE spare robot. So I had to deal with appearances as well as actual rules at that point. I'm pretty sure Norm's forgiven me by now.

All of which is to say that practice robots, spare parts, and withholding allowances make for lots of complications. While the 5.5.2 blue box is a little clumsy, a separate rule would likely be just as awkward to cover cases like bringing a practice robot to practice with but not use for parts. You couldn't possibly cover that case with any other existing rule, but writing up a rule for that specific case would likely miss others that I haven't thought of. The blue box entirely rules out bringing a practice robot to help your team in any fashion, bagged or not, which is just a more general case of the specific case above.

Also, does the 5.5.2 blue box have some sort of unintended, deleterious consequences? It doesn't seem so to me, so it seems like a pretty good update.

The biggest problem is that for teams that did bag two things that look like "robots" (not ROBOTs) for the intended purpose of having spare parts they will be in trouble for something that they had no idea was illegal and it's already in the bag(s). Also the current rule does not prevent teams from assembling a 2nd robot at the event, you just can't bring it to the event. You can still build it there from mechanisms that you bring.

[PayneTrain]

All of which is to say that practice robots, spare parts, and withholding allowances make for lots of complications. While the 5.5.2 blue box is a little clumsy, a separate rule would likely be just as awkward to cover cases like bringing a practice robot to practice with but not use for parts. You couldn't possibly cover that case with any other existing rule, but writing up a rule for that specific case would likely miss others that I haven't thought of.

Will there every be an obvious solution the GDC could implement to dismantle such an impressive myriad of self-constructed problems?

[Kevin Sevcik]

The biggest problem is that for teams that did bag two things that look like "robots" (not ROBOTs) for the intended purpose of having spare parts they will be in trouble for something that they had no idea was illegal and it's already in the bag(s). Also the current rule does not prevent teams from assembling a 2nd robot at the event, you just can't bring it to the event. You can still build it there from mechanisms that you bring.I'll grant you that this is a broken update for anyone who's bagged a "robot" for spare parts. Retroactively making things illegal is not cool. Also, I'll admit I hadn't considered that teams could actually bag an entire mostly complete robot as a spare, since that's so far outside my team's experience. In that light, a more targeted ruling to keep teams from swapping in an entire robot as a "repair" for a broken robot would be a better idea. Seeing as philosophers are still arguing about whether someone is the same "person" if you instantly swap all their atoms for identical but different ones, I don't think I want to tackle that rule tonight...

[z_beeblebrox]

Will there every be an obvious solution the GDC could implement to dismantle such an impressive myriad of self-constructed problems?

Remove bag day?

[marshall]

Frank, after some consideration, I have but one thing to say to you:

http://www.reactiongifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/fart.gif

Seriously though, no hard feelings. We found a loophole and you closed it. This doesn't mean we're giving up. ;)

[PayneTrain]

Remove bag day?

It can't be that simple, can it?

[Kevin Sevcik]

It can't be that simple, can it? I'm pretty sure I saw the annual "remove bag day" thread a week or so ago, but if y'all want to start up another one, it'd be more productive in it's own thread. As opposed to a largely unrelated team update thread.

[s_forbes]

Oh frabjous day! Finally we can just use any pressure regulator that's stopped down to 60 psi instead of having to find one that is both rated for 120 psi and has a maximum output pressure of 60 psi.

I agree! Glad the wording was changed. I'm pretty sure that's what was always intended, but just wasn't written down properly. Opens the door to some other COTS parts.


Also, does the 5.5.2 blue box have some sort of unintended, deleterious consequences? It doesn't seem so to me, so it seems like a pretty good update.

It seems like a clear wording to me... and doesn't change the original intent of the rule. I'm not sure what we're supposed to be upset about in this thread. :confused:

[Munchskull]

To do that would be to acknowledge openly that the 6 week build season is a myth and that many teams have them.

The day the GDC does that will be the day that these problems can start being fixed.

[Lil' Lavery]

Seriously though, no hard feelings. We found a loophole and you closed it. This doesn't mean we're giving up. ;)

Please do give up at finding loopholes.

The reason rules like these have to exist isn't because bag day or the GDC, it's because teams try to find ways around the rules. For a long time, the culture discouraged "lawyering" the rules instead of following the intent. Teams that try to find the loopholes to gain an advantage rather than following the intent is what causes rules like this to be necessary.

[Tristan Lall]

Please do give up at finding loopholes.

The reason rules like these have to exist isn't because bag day or the GDC, it's because teams try to find ways around the rules. For a long time, the culture discouraged "lawyering" the rules instead of following the intent. Teams that try to find the loopholes to gain an advantage rather than following the intent is what causes rules like this to be necessary.
This is certainly an old argument, but I continue to disagree with this outlook. Most fundamentally, teams frequently do not, and in many cases effectively cannot know the intent precisely. Every uncertainty begets the concern that another team will more accurately gauge FIRST's intent, and get away with a more rewarding strategy. The nature of competition therefore fundamentally induces teams to seek the limit of what's legal.

Similarly, when officials have to weigh the intent of the rulemakers against the conduct of a team, they find themselves also having to confront this uncertainty. How can an official know how to draw the line between permissible and impermissible conduct if they aren't willing to entertain and compare different interpretations before settling on a definitive answer?

[MooreteP]

Can we ban the words "reasonably astute observer" forever. It's a bandaid when you can't come up with a concrete rule and shouldn't be in the rule book.
I would rather them say "Hey if you push this rule, HQ might tell you it's illegal. Its a risk you are taking." That's basically what it means.

Dang it Jim, I'm an Engineer, not a Lawyer!

[D_Price]

Thank you Cad! Was just about to scour the manual to figure out what those drawings were :D


In case anyone is wondering what specific drawings are being referenced:

GE-16019 on GE-16023 are the dividers between the defences

GE-16028 is the Cheval de Frise platform

GE-16038 is the Sally Port door assembly

GE-16178 is the Cheval de Frise platform assembly

GE-16181 and GE-16184 are the cleats at the bottom of the batter

GE-16185 is one of the batter segments

GE-16213 is the "roof" of the tower

and GE-16241 is a spacer for a U-bolt

[Basel A]

Please do give up at finding loopholes.

The reason rules like these have to exist isn't because bag day or the GDC, it's because teams try to find ways around the rules. For a long time, the culture discouraged "lawyering" the rules instead of following the intent. Teams that try to find the loopholes to gain an advantage rather than following the intent is what causes rules like this to be necessary.

I refuse to follow rules that don't exist. Why would you do that. Not to mention that they didn't lawyer anything! You've always been able to bag spare parts. They bagged spare parts. There was no upper limit. They bagged a lot of spare parts. They didn't go around anything.

Why are there limits on spare parts? The reason teams feel the want to grab parts from their robot in the trailer is because it's ridiculous not to let them. How many robots has the GDC crippled for an event because something critical broke without a legal spare? Is there any good reason?

+1 on banning "reasonably astute observer." If you had 3 reasonably astute observers they'd have 5 different opinions on what counts as a robot.

[pipsqueaker]

Do we have a definition of "event?" If we leave our practice robot in the trailer at the parking lot and walk out there to drill off some parts if needed, is that now illegal?

[PayneTrain]

Do we have a definition of "event?" If we leave our practice robot in the trailer at the parking lot and walk out there to drill off some parts if needed, is that now illegal?

Does 3467 need to get their practice robot out of their high school before their district? Would 190 need to move a robot off campus before WPI can hold their event? Good thing 1885 isn't fielding their robot at the event in their high school, they'd have to drop their practice robot off at the local Subway...

[notmattlythgoe]

Do we have a definition of "event?" If we leave our practice robot in the trailer at the parking lot and walk out there to drill off some parts if needed, is that now illegal?

That depends on when you were planning on drilling off those parts and what those parts are.

If they are COTS parts then there is no issue. If they are non-COTS parts and it is during robot drop off there is no issue. Otherwise there is an issue.

This Team Update didn't make that illegal, it's been illegal.

[Jon Stratis]

Do we have a definition of "event?" If we leave our practice robot in the trailer at the parking lot and walk out there to drill off some parts if needed, is that now illegal?

Unless those parts you drill off are completely COTS parts, this practice has always been illegal. You get to exercise your withholding allowance once, at load-in, not bring in 5 lbs here and 3 lbs there.

[pipsqueaker]

Alright, thanks for the clarification!

[Retired Starman]

I refuse to follow rules that don't exist. Why would you do that. Not to mention that they didn't lawyer anything! You've always been able to bag spare parts. They bagged spare parts. There was no upper limit. They bagged a lot of spare parts. They didn't go around anything.

Why are there limits on spare parts? The reason teams feel the want to grab parts from their robot in the trailer is because it's ridiculous not to let them. How many robots has the GDC crippled for an event because something critical broke without a legal spare? Is there any good reason?

+1 on banning "reasonably astute observer." If you had 3 reasonably astute observers they'd have 5 different opinions on what counts as a robot.

As I understand it, 900 not only ". . .bagged a lot of spare parts" at Palmetto, they drove their spare parts around on the practice field to work on their stability problem. This astute observer sees that as a second robot, no matter what it looked like in the bag without all its complete systems and parts.

Was this group of spare parts inspected for safety before being allowed on the practice field? Did it have a sticker? I can see where having a nearly complete robot for spare parts in a bag on bag day could be legal, but not if it goes running around under power on the practice or competition fields.

I vote for a rule which allows only inspected robots to be powered up and driven around other robots.

[marshall]

Please do give up at finding loopholes.

No. Absolutely not. Never. The day we do is the day we've stopped being the Zebracorns.

Every year we (900) sit around and read the rules after Kickoff and then we write up our goals on the board, like a lot of teams probably do... Unlike a lot of teams, one of those goals is always "break the game".

I don't expect everyone to understand that concept or why it is important but it's something we always set out to do... be that by throwing a ball 50 feet, or by building a new robot at an event, or by working with machine learning like cascade classifiers to detect the undetectable, we have a specific goal to do it. It's part of our team's culture and is as unique as our pants.

Those who keep saying that we've violated the "spirit of FIRST" or the "spirit of the rules" are forgetting that this is an engineering sport and it's not tiddlywinks.

[meg]

That depends on when you were planning on drilling off those parts and what those parts are.

If they are COTS parts then there is no issue. If they are non-COTS parts and it is during robot drop off there is no issue.


Based on a reading of the new rule (emphasis mine):
"Entering” a ROBOT (or Robot) in to a FIRST Robotics Competition
means bringing it to the event such that it’s an aid to your Team
(e.g. for spare parts, judging material, or for practice). Spare
FABRICATED ITEMS may be brought to the event in a bag or part of a
WITHHOLDING ALLOWANCE.
This rule does not prohibit teams from bringing in FIRST LEGO®
League or FIRST Tech Challenge robots for the purposes of awards
presentations or pit displays.

I would argue this precludes it being anywhere near the venue, even if it is in the trailer and only COTS items are removed. While that WAS legal, I don't think it is anymore. It didn't say bringing it INTO the event, it just says bringing it.

[engunneer]

Does 3467 need to get their practice robot out of their high school before their district? Would 190 need to move a robot off campus before WPI can hold their event? Good thing 1885 isn't fielding their robot at the event in their high school, they'd have to drop their practice robot off at the local Subway...

4761 locks the shop during the event we host and we treat it like we are at someone else's school. The practice robot (not bagged) will be locked in the shop.

[Lil' Lavery]

Those who keep saying that we've violated the "spirit of FIRST" or the "spirit of the rules" are forgetting that this is an engineering sport and it's not tiddlywinks.

Trust me, I'm not forgetting this is an engineering sport. But breaking the rules is not engineering. If I issue a requirement for a contract, and you come back with a design that "technically" meets that requirement, but doesn't meet the intent of what I want accomplished, I'm not going to issue you that contract. Sure, you found a way to satisfy my requirements, but it's not the product I want to pay someone to produce. Engineering involves finding solutions to problems, not merely sidestepping them.


Further still, bringing a practice robot to an event isn't finding a novel strategy that "breaks the game," it's bending the rules. It doesn't even seem to meet your "Zebracorn" design philosophy, as it's not even a design choice. The only cultural value you seem to be stressing with this move is trying to thumb your nose at the GDC (at best).

[KrazyCarl92]

Further still, bringing a practice robot to an event isn't finding a novel strategy that "breaks the game," it's bending the rules.

Okay, this goes a little too far. AT THE TIME that the team in question bagged their practice robot and brought it to the event, this was an ENTIRELY LEGAL act. It was smart. Less than a day between bag day and load in at the event? Very good idea to bag the practice robot to have at your disposal during the event; it was certainly of more use to them there than being out of the bag for another 18 hours or so. Some degree of rest was probably a better use of that time anyway.

Rules updates should not been applied ex post facto to vilify teams who acted entirely within the rules at the time.

[FrankJ]

Trust me, I'm not forgetting this is an engineering sport. But breaking the rules is not engineering. If I issue a requirement for a contract, and you come back with a design that "technically" meets that requirement, but doesn't meet the intent of what I want accomplished, I'm not going to issue you that contract. ...

Not that am advocating layering the rules but. That is why mil specs are so long & buyer & sellers have ridiculous terms and conditions. Companies routinely underbid contracts knowing that they will make it up on change orders. Like it or not this is all real life engineering that you need to be aware of even if you choose not to participate.

Back to FRC. The real underlying issue is how to limit the resource requirements of the competition or do we even try. I am not sure either side has the moral high ground. This same discussion goes on in Formula One BTW.

[marshall]

This same discussion goes on in Formula One BTW.

Indeed it does. :)

[marshall]

Rules updates should not been applied ex post facto to vilify teams who acted entirely within the rules at the time.

No one has been vilified... Frank sent a nice email thanking us for being understanding about the situation and explaining their (GDC) thoughts behind the rule change. I said I have no hard feelings. I think people are reading a lot more into this and making it a passionate and lively CD discussion as always.

If you think we are villainous for our shenanigans then you don't know our team and are just being a whiny jerkface. The Zebracorns complied with all rules that existed (and even some that didn't) at the time of the competition and will comply with all rules that exist now moving forward.

[mathking]

Trust me, I'm not forgetting this is an engineering sport. But breaking the rules is not engineering. If I issue a requirement for a contract, and you come back with a design that "technically" meets that requirement, but doesn't meet the intent of what I want accomplished, I'm not going to issue you that contract. Sure, you found a way to satisfy my requirements, but it's not the product I want to pay someone to produce. Engineering involves finding solutions to problems, not merely sidestepping them.


Further still, bringing a practice robot to an event isn't finding a novel strategy that "breaks the game," it's bending the rules. It doesn't even seem to meet your "Zebracorn" design philosophy, as it's not even a design choice. The only cultural value you seem to be stressing with this move is trying to thumb your nose at the GDC (at best).

I agree with this. Some of the most important tasks my team and my classes undertake are the ones for clients. Learning to make something that the client or customer wants is important. And yes, sometimes a really novel approach is awesome. But if you submit a bid, get a contract and produce a final product that technically satisfies the the terms in the bid but is not what the client really needs or wants you are not going to keep getting clients.

Breaking the game, to my reasoning, isn't finding a loophole in the rules about spare parts. It is great to think about the rules of the game and come up with an off the wall strategy that may never have been considered by the GDC. Such as figuring out you can redirect soccer balls right back into a goal with the right bot in a fixed position. And when that is a strategy goal you should always prepare for the possibility that someone clarifies or changes the rule and takes that strategy off the table.

All that said, I see what teams likely want this year. If you can bag two complete robots, you can effectively absorb twice as much damage. It makes practice field work less risky, since you aren't worried about breaking the competition robot. And I do think that teams that bagged two robots shouldn't be penalized and should be allowed to use one as spare parts for the other. Teams that bagged just spare parts of every component can do the same thing.

As for the "Reasonably astute observer" part of the rules, the trade off of getting rid of that phrase is a lot more rules.

[Chris is me]

Can we just get rid of bag day and withholding allowances already? Who does it really stop anyway? Anyone who wants to be competitive (with some rare exceptions) just builds another robot. Rebuilds from the drive base up are not unusual even with just 30 pounds. Teams now plan their entire seasons around gradually upgrading and rebuilding their robots over the course of multiple events. No matter what insane patchwork of rules the GDC writes, any team that wants to win the world championship is going to squeeze every last drop out of the rules to do as much as they can as long as they can. Let's be done with this nonsense, so we can save teams across the world thousands of dollars each and make all of FRC more competitive. Aren't we all sick of this?

[Taylor]

Can we just get rid of bag day and withholding allowances already? ... Aren't we all sick of this?
no.

[Alan Anderson]

It seems like a clear wording to me... and doesn't change the original intent of the rule. I'm not sure what we're supposed to be upset about in this thread. :confused:

I'm 99 44/100% certain that the phrase "enter a robot in an FRC event" was originally meant to mean approximately "submit a robot for inspection in order to compete using it". That's the usage of "enter" that goes along with a competition such as a foot race or dog show.

The new definition in the blue box turns "event" into a place instead of a competition, and turns "enter" into a physical movement instead of the equivalent of pointing to a robot and saying "That's what we will be putting on the field." It reinterprets the meaning of the words to fit a desired goal.

As I said before, I am basically in agreement with what this change does. I'm just disappointed that the GDC chose to redefine what "enter an event" means instead of finding -- or creating -- a better place to say "don't bring more than one FRC robot capable of playing the game". The current wording does have at least one effect that I consider undesirable: it now makes bringing things like FRC-sized showbots illegal, even if they could never pass inspection.

[Zebra_Fact_Man]

Can we just get rid of bag day and withholding allowances already? Who does it really stop anyway? Anyone who wants to be competitive (with some rare exceptions) just builds another robot. Rebuilds from the drive base up are not unusual even with just 30 pounds. Teams now plan their entire seasons around gradually upgrading and rebuilding their robots over the course of multiple events. No matter what insane patchwork of rules the GDC writes, any team that wants to win the world championship is going to squeeze every last drop out of the rules to do as much as they can as long as they can. Let's be done with this nonsense, so we can save teams across the world thousands of dollars each and make all of FRC more competitive. Aren't we all sick of this?

no.

Yes.

[notmattlythgoe]

Yes.

https://media.riffsy.com/images/c6609bccc44eb321f34c583496faccd3/raw

[galewind]

What frustrates me the MOST about this update is the change of the size of the vision target. Why was this necessary?

(Time to adjust target and change our auto-targeting code).

[tstew]

Please do give up at finding loopholes.

The reason rules like these have to exist isn't because bag day or the GDC, it's because teams try to find ways around the rules. For a long time, the culture discouraged "lawyering" the rules instead of following the intent. Teams that try to find the loopholes to gain an advantage rather than following the intent is what causes rules like this to be necessary.

The game manual talks about intent.
The intent of this manual is that the text means exactly, and only, what it says. Please avoid interpreting the text based on assumptions about intent, implementation of past rules, or how a situation might be in “real life.” There are no hidden requirements or restrictions. If you’ve read everything, you know everything.

[thatnameistaken]

What frustrates me the MOST about this update is the change of the size of the vision target. Why was this necessary?

(Time to adjust target and change our auto-targeting code).

This was in update 7; they forgot to alter the text until now. The diagram has showed the proper height for a month.

[NShep98]

Please do give up at finding loopholes.

This would be my response if someone were to get overly upset upon said loophole being closed as a result of their actions.

Unlike a lot of teams, one of those goals is always "break the game".

I personally applaud this effort, so long as you ("you" meaning anyone reading this with this mindset) understand, as it seems Marshall already does, that FIRST has the right to change the rules on you if they feel that you broke the game badly enough that it is now less enjoyable for everyone else. Finding a unique solution not explicitly prohibited is a different story altogether, and can often result in some pretty cool, entertaining robots.

[Coach Norm]

I actually impounded a spare robot as Lonestar LRI once. A team brought it in on Thursday morning to remove part of it for their competition robot. Since it was well over the withholding allowance, I told them to pull whatever they wanted or thought they needed right away (under withholding limits), then impounded the remainder for the rest of the regional.
...

I'm pretty sure Norm's forgiven me by now.


Kevin,

I can say I learned my lesson the hard way for sure on that one. It was definitely an oversight on my part as our team lead. No hard feelings and I completely understand the position we put you in as LRI.

[marshall]

Kevin,

I can say I learned my lesson the hard way for sure on that one. It was definitely an oversight on my part as our team lead. No hard feelings and I completely understand the position we put you in as LRI.

Smells like gracious professionalism in here... :)

[Karthik]

Can we just get rid of bag day and withholding allowances already? Who does it really stop anyway? Anyone who wants to be competitive (with some rare exceptions) just builds another robot. Rebuilds from the drive base up are not unusual even with just 30 pounds. Teams now plan their entire seasons around gradually upgrading and rebuilding their robots over the course of multiple events. No matter what insane patchwork of rules the GDC writes, any team that wants to win the world championship is going to squeeze every last drop out of the rules to do as much as they can as long as they can. Let's be done with this nonsense, so we can save teams across the world thousands of dollars each and make all of FRC more competitive. Aren't we all sick of this?

I do agree that there are many people who are sick of bag day along with the rules and restrictions that come with it. However, there are many teams and people out there who are in full support of bag day, many of which claim that they will no longer be involved in FRC if these restrictions are lifted. Frankly, I don't know which camp I'm a part of. However, I do know that there are enough people on both sides of this argument that we can't just assume that everyone wants to end the "6 week build".

[Ryan Dognaux]

Can we just get rid of bag day and withholding allowances already?

I'm with Chris on this one. I think everyone knows that the teams with the resources will build 2 or 3 or as many robots as needed to be competitive. Bag day really only hurts the teams that can only build one robot and that's a good chunk of FRC teams. 4329 builds two robots because it gives us a huge competitive advantage. We've iterated a lot over the past week in our shop & fixed things that would have absolutely killed our first regional performance.

Remove bag day and you level the playing field for a lot for teams. Districts help with un-bag windows but a lot of us aren't there yet. Not wanting to change this because 'that's the way it has always been' is silly - look at how well District events are going and how people were very hesitant to switch at first. Change can be a good thing and is necessary if we want FRC to grow.

[FrankJ]

Does this count (http://xkcd.com/689/) as breaking the game?

[Daniel_LaFleur]

I do agree that there are many people who are sick of bag day along with the rules and restrictions that come with it. However, there are many teams and people out there who are in full support of bag day, many of which claim that they will no longer be involved in FRC if these restrictions are lifted. Frankly, I don't know which camp I'm a part of. However, I do know that there are enough people on both sides of this argument that we can't just assume that everyone wants to end the "6 week build".

I, personally, would like to see bag day rigidly enforced and no withholding allowance. This would eliminate a lot of loopholes.

[ChuckDickerson]

First let me say that I consider my team to be a typical “mid-resource” team. We are more fortunate than some but far from an “elite” or “powerhouse” level team. We have never won a regional competition but are usually competitive and at least play in eliminations. We do this by building as simple and robust of a machine as we can that achieves our game strategy and objectives. We pride ourselves on the quality of our robots even if they aren’t CNC’d and powder coated. Our robots are 100% student designed, fabricated, and built using a miter saw, band saw, drill press, and small benchtop manual milling machine and lathe.

FIRST is not fair. It never has been and never will be. That’s not the point and I don’t think we should be trying to write rules that try to limit the “haves” just to try to artificially “level the playing field” for the “have nots”. Every team is different and every team has their strengths and weaknesses. It should be up to each team to be able to maximize their strengths where they can.

In my own team’s situation, one of the ways we “level the playing field” against the more “elite” teams with lots of high end in house fabrication capabilities and mentors that are way smarter than me is we use a lot of 80/20 T-Slot extrusion. Another way is we design for modularity, reliability, redundancy, and maintainability. We may not be able to design and fabricate the fanciest robot parts but we can design simple reliable parts that are easy to manufacture given a simple machine shop and a bunch of kids learning as they go along. We also rely heavily on COTS items from AndyMark and VexPro, etc.

With that said it has also become the norm in this modern era of FRC that more and more teams are building 2 machines during their build season. Most would call these two machines a practice robot and a competition ROBOT. In the old days this was less common but so was going to more than one regional competition in a season. Now a days it is almost a given that to be competitive you have to build a practice robot to continue driver practice after bag & tag and go to more than one competition. It’s not an absolute rule but it sure helps if you have the resources to make it happen. In my opinion it is the biggest reason that bag & tag simply hurts teams with fewer resources than those that can afford to build a practice robot.

For a couple years now, my team has strived to raise ourselves to the level of that later group. We have built a second practice robot and gone to 2 competitions now since 2012. Over these last few years we have also increased the amount of spare parts we fabricate during build season and bag on bag and tag night. We essentially build as many spare MECHANISMs as we can afford and think we might need as replacements. In 2013 we built an entire spare Frisbee shooter and bagged it on bag & tag night. In 2014 we built an entire spare catapult and bagged it on bag and tag night. Last year we had spare mecanum drive modules and lift parts and a spare mechanism we called the P.O.T. (Pusher Outer Thingy) that was designed solely for doing coopertition and bagged all of it on bag and tag night.

This year we took it to the next level. We built 3 complete machines. We started with a prototype robot as we always do and were satisfied enough with it by about the end of week 4 of the build season to start duplicating pieces and parts for the competition robot and spare parts. Again, our robot is really simple this year. It’s a “rebuilding” year for our team and we knew going in that our collective student “experience level” was lower this year. We lost some top notch seniors last year. So we didn’t even try to design for the high goal or hanging. We bought Rhino tracks from AndyMark and built a simple but hopefully reliable drivetrain around them and added a simple ball collector/arm/low goal scoring mechanism. The entire robot is 80/20 t-slot, lexan cut on a bandsaw, and some plates and brackets here and there made from aluminum flat bar, angle, channel, etc. We have 8 motors total. 4 CIMS, 2 Mini-CIMS, and 2 BAG motors. All the gearboxes are COTS (2xAM ToughBox Minis, 2x AM RAW Boxes, and a half dozen VEX Pro VersaPlanetaries. No custom gearboxes for us. Throw in the RoboRIO, PDP, VRM, 8 X Talon SRXs, the main breaker and RSL and that’s about it. 85 lbs total inspection weight (no battery, no bumpers). We think it works well but I guess we will find out when we get to our first competition in a couple of weeks.

Knowing the reduced level of student experience on the team this year we made a conscious decision right up front after kickoff not to shoot for the moon this year but instead build our robot to be easily maintainable and repairable and have plenty of simple “spares” that we can quickly replace on the robot if needed in the hopes of being able to “win the war of attrition”. It was obvious to us that this game is going to be brutal on the robots. We hope one of our strengths this year is to follow the K.I.S.S. principle and be the “last man standing” when others have built over complicated machines that are prone to failure under the stress of this game. We may have missed the mark completely but that was our strategic decision.

Thus the decision to build the 3 identical machines. One “practice robot”, one “competition ROBOT”, and a complete set of spare parts. In addition, we built additional spare parts of things we are particularly worried about including the gearboxes and our ball collector/arm. We are potentially most vulnerable when our ball collector/arm is outside the FRAME PERIMETER due to impacts with other robots. The only difference in our practice robot and our spare and competition robots is the wiring on the practice robot isn’t quite as neat and tidy and it doesn’t have the orange RSL. The competition ROBOT and its twin spare parts robot are as identical as we could possibly make them given the limits of our manual machine shop capabilities and students fabrications skills. The only significant difference may literally be the length of wire stripping. The robots weigh exactly the same.

Here is a photo of the 3 robots lined up side by side:

http://i.imgur.com/LjRxmE9.jpg

In the photo the “practice” robot is on the left, the “spare parts” robot is in the middle, and the “competition ROBOT” is on the right. The kids literally had to put a little piece of blue painters tape on the back of the “competition ROBOT” that said “comp bot” to keep the 3 straight when they were fabricating and installing pieces and parts. I made them pick one.

Here is a photo of just the “competition ROBOT”. Note the piece of blue painters tape on the back bar of 80/20 t-slot:

http://i.imgur.com/Vxq2Mxq.jpg

As I have stated above, the entire machine is modular. It essentially can be broken down into 5 major “modules”. The core “chassis”, the left and right Rhino track modules, the ball collector/arm, and the electronics module. The Rhino track drive modules can be removed via 3 X ¼-20 SHCS each and unplug the 2 CIM motor Anderson connectors. The ball collector/arm removes from the “shoulder” motors via 4 screws and unplugging of 2 more Anderson connectors for the BAG intake motors. The entire electronics “module” can be removed via 6 wing nuts.

Here is a photo of the “competition ROBOT” disassembled into its major “modules”:

http://i.imgur.com/W2o4qfo.jpg

We have run drills on how long it takes to disassemble and reassemble the entire robot. It takes under 10 minutes for only two of my students (that know what they are doing) to completely disassemble the robot using only a handful of hand tools. Re-assembly takes slightly less time. I am confident that even under “competition stress” two of my students could completely disassemble and reassemble our entire “competition ROBOT” in under 30 minute, probably closer to 20 minutes, while replacing any faulty “module” from our spare parts supply.

This photo was taken just after a “re-assembly” drill:

http://i.imgur.com/7QLmO65.jpg

It represents our fully functional “competition ROBOT”.

Our desire is not to gain any sort of “competitive advantage” by entering more than one ROBOT into any FRC competition where we compete. Or intention is to simply enter our one “competition ROBOT” and have a complete set of spare MECHANISMs available in our pit for repair and replacement if needed.

Here are our “spare parts”:

http://i.imgur.com/WsJi7WB.jpg

To a “reasonably astute observer” it may look like a robot but as far as me as an LRI and me as a team mentor can tell it doesn’t meet the FIRST definition of a ROBOT because we pulled the RoboRIO off for safe travels reasons. The RoboRIO can be mounted back in seconds. It Velcros down and just plug in the power (Anderson), the CAN bus (2 pin connector), the RSL, and a USB camera. The RoboRIO will count against our 30 lb withholding allowance because we have “assembled” it by adding the Velcro and wires and connectors. The yellow tote in the above photo contains additional spare parts that we didn’t want to count against our withholding allowance including more spare COTS but assembled Toughbox-Mini gear boxes and VersaPlanetaries, and additional spare set of assembled Rev4 pulleys for our Rhino track modules, and some misc. fabricated structural plates and pieces. Strapped to each side of the yellow tote are two spare ball collectors/arms (one on each side of tote so one isn’t really visible as it is on the far side of the yellow tote).

To be continued in the next post due to image count limitations...

[ChuckDickerson]

... continued:

It is my understanding of the rules and definition in the 2016 manual that what is under the yellow tote in the above is a spare MECHANISM because it doesn’t meet the FIRST game manual definition of a ROBOT (doesn’t have the control system (RoboRIO)) but is “a COTS or custom assembly of COMPONENTS that provide specific functionality on the ROBOT. A MECHANISM can be disassembled (and then reassembled) into individual COMPONENTS without damage to the parts”.

Thus this is our “competition MECHANISM” just prior to sealing the bag:

http://i.imgur.com/QlY1AoE.jpg

Note also that the RoboRIO has been removed thus it does not have a “control system” so it doesn’t qualify as a ROBOT.

Finally here are our two bags as they were bagged on bag and tag night and as they still sit right now:

http://i.imgur.com/dmupQOk.jpg

Obviously the “Competitition MECHANISM” (which we intend to add a RoboRIO from our 30 lb withholding allowance to upon unbagging and then get inspected) is on the left. A complete set of spare parts (both COMPONENTS (in the yellow tote) and whole MECHANISMs) is in the bag on the right.

Our intention is to immediately disassemble our “spare parts MECHANISM” into separate “modules” (or sub-MECHANISMs) once we are allowed to unbag, have our pit setup, and can access the appropriate tools. It is not in any way our intention to “compete” with two ROBOTS. We simply desire to make transportation easier and more manageable by having all our separate spare MECHANISMs assembled into one larger MECHANISM so all those parts aren’t loose in the bag. I believe this is entirely within the spirit of the competition and in no way un-GP.

I fully agree that it would be against the spirit of the rules if a team brings two robots and attempts to gain a competitive advantage by say:

1) Building two differently designed robots. For example a low bar, low goal, breacher robot and a wholly different high goal, hanging robot and attempts to compete with both by starting with one and tries to “upgrade” to the second at some point in the course of competition play.
2) Build two identical robots (as in my team’s case) but choose to use a legally inspected one on the competition field while the second un-inspected one was used on the practice field for testing, etc.
3) Building additional robots to hand out to their alliance partners to use during eliminations.

The question I do have is what then actually constitutes a team’s competition ROBOT? It is fairly clear in my mind that “something” becomes a team’s competition ROBOT when we stick the inspection sticker on it. However, WHAT is that “something” that constitutes the ROBOT? Every single piece and part can be removed, replaced, repaired, “upgraded”, etc. throughout the competition as long as the team follows the re-inspection requirements in T15. What rule(s) would actually restrict us from replacing every single piece and part of our legally inspected “competition ROBOT” with an identical spare replacement “module” from our pile of spare parts we bagged on bag and tag night and brought in legally at load in? Nothing as far as I can tell. It would be entirely legal and within the spirit of the rules and completely GP. Teams routinely build and bag all manner of “spare parts”. However, taken to the next level, what would restrict us from keeping our “spare MECHANISM” that looks identical to our “competition ROBOT” except for a missing RoboRIO and if needed due to a catastrophic failure, replace ALL of our MECHANISMs we have preassembled into one giant MECHANISM as a complete spare “robot” at one time and go to the inspection station and asking for a re-inspection and thus creating a whole new ROBOT nearly instantaneously? Again, just for clarification I/my team have no intentions of doing anything like this and absolutely will not because I believe as a team mentor that this is against the spirit of the rules.

My questions to all are:

1) Was anything we chose to do during build season or up until bag and tag night against the letter, intent, or spirt of the rules as you read, interpret, or understand them?

2) Would anyone interpret anything we chose to do during build season, what we bagged on bag and tag night, or what we intend to do at competition to be un-GP?

3) Given our team’s “resource level”, which I imagine to be fairly typical of the average team, is our conscious decision to play to our strengths by hoping to “win the war of attrition” giving our team an unfair competitive advantage in any way by bringing a complete set of “spare parts” that are currently bagged in an assembled spare MECHANISM that to “a reasonably astute observer” might appear to be a ROBOT?

4) Prior to last night’s update I firmly believe we followed the rules as they were written at the time up until bag and tag night. As an LRI, I can assure you that it is not the GDC’s intent to dis-allow teams bagging spare parts. Does the new wording added to the blue box in last night’s update clarify or muddy the intent of the rules regarding spare parts and what constitutes a ROBOT and/or what can and can’t be brought to an event in a bag?

[ChuckDickerson]

Well, all those image came through much larger than I intended. Sorry about that.

[Kevin Kolodziej]

If a team bagged a ROBOT and an assembly of spare parts, but the assembly of spare parts was lacking wheels, would a "reasonably astute observer" think that an assembly of spare parts without wheels could play this game?

*Note that this is not possible to do at this point in time, so this is a hypothetical argument...for this season...under the current rules and updates.

It has ALWAYS been legal to bag as many spare fabricated parts as you want. I don't understand AT ALL the point of this discussion of it being assembled to resemble a robot or not. Even if Team 900 used their spare parts on the practice field (not the competition field during practice? I'm a little unclear on this), I see no problem whatsoever. Teams test half built, uninspected robots on the practice field all the time.

[meg]

Even if Team 900 used their spare parts on the practice field (not the competition field during practice? I'm a little unclear on this)

Our spare parts were only ever used in our pits or the practice field (though some were modified and put on our competition bot which we got fully re-inspected). It was also NEVER used on the practice field when we were queuing or on the competition field, at the request of the LRI which we happily complied with.

[meg]

I agree with this. Some of the most important tasks my team and my classes undertake are the ones for clients. Learning to make something that the client or customer wants is important. And yes, sometimes a really novel approach is awesome. But if you submit a bid, get a contract and produce a final product that technically satisfies the the terms in the bid but is not what the client really needs or wants you are not going to keep getting clients.

Breaking the game, to my reasoning, isn't finding a loophole in the rules about spare parts. It is great to think about the rules of the game and come up with an off the wall strategy that may never have been considered by the GDC. Such as figuring out you can redirect soccer balls right back into a goal with the right bot in a fixed position. And when that is a strategy goal you should always prepare for the possibility that someone clarifies or changes the rule and takes that strategy off the table.

All that said, I see what teams likely want this year. If you can bag two complete robots, you can effectively absorb twice as much damage. It makes practice field work less risky, since you aren't worried about breaking the competition robot. And I do think that teams that bagged two robots shouldn't be penalized and should be allowed to use one as spare parts for the other. Teams that bagged just spare parts of every component can do the same thing.


I think it depends on what you want to teach the students. What if the engineers at Google had decided that because cars are vehicles driven by people, they couldn't start to automate that process.

What if the Wright brothers had listened to the whole world telling them that it was impossible to fly? Where would this world be if all the engineers and inventors just accepted what is and what has been assumed? Cars? Space exploration? Computers?

[galewind]

This was in update 7; they forgot to alter the text until now. The diagram has showed the proper height for a month.

Yeah my programmers corrected me -- they knew about it already :)

[BrennanB]

Can we just get rid of bag day and withholding allowances already? Who does it really stop anyway?

The team that holds off building anything significant, goes to week 1/2 competion, copies 1114/118/2056/179/33/67's robot. and competes week 5/6

Or even team xxxx competes with weak robot week 1, copies and builds a completely new robot copying zzzz team that won their event for their week5/6 DCHMP/CHMP event.

[PayneTrain]

The team that holds off building anything significant, goes to week 1/2 competion, copies 1114/118/2056/179/33/67's robot. and competes week 5/6

It's really entertaining to me that people actually think this would happen.

[AGPapa]

It's really entertaining to me that people actually think this would happen.

It happens in VEX.

I'd instead prefer a 4-6 hour unbag window every week. Maybe ban teams from adding non-COTS parts during those hours. That'll eliminate the need for a practice bot and stop copying.

[BrennanB]

It's really entertaining to me that people actually think this would happen.

Happens in VEX and FLL. Not like people can't build a robot that is already preconcieved in 3-4 weeks. People do a decent job of doing it in 3 days. Will it be as good as the original? No. But it will still be decent.

I mean the elite teams just wouldn't reveal their robot/compete at early events. Nobody would be allowed to take pictures of their robot or film it without them getting annoyed.

[s_forbes]

It's really entertaining to me that people actually think this would happen.

We actually held off on designing one of the components of our robot this year until we could see how all of the other teams did it, that way we could choose the best approach without dedicating all the hours to prototyping. This is mostly because we're sinking all of our time into other parts of the robot, but still... It seems to be an effective approach for some things.

[Nathan Streeter]

It happens in VEX.

I'd instead prefer a 4-6 hour unbag window every week. Maybe ban teams from adding non-COTS parts during those hours. That'll eliminate the need for a practice bot and stop copying.

But it'd be feasible to re-design and then iterate on that robot in the course of a few weeks... it's much, much less so in FRC.

[dodar]

Phoning in an event in FRC to try and copy something that may or may not effect how you do at another event is just stupid; at any level of robotics competition.

[PayneTrain]

I'm not so dense that I fail to understand it happens in VEX (and FTC, I guess?) but this is not the VEX Robotics Competition; this is the FIRST Robotics Competition. We have gone in year-in and year-out with strategic design convergence happening in FRC. The venn diagram of "teams with the resources to fly out to an event and copy a robot" "teams that actually need just that one key to be any more competitive than they are already" does not have a large cross-section. Last I checked, VRC robots did not cost thousands upon thousands of dollars and be built with a custom structure like all of the teams you just mentioned.

[asid61]

It's really entertaining to me that people actually think this would happen.

Ditto. Even when potential "game-breaking" strategies, such as the 11 page thread on CD from 2010 describing, to the letter, 469's game breaking strategy that year: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=80202. I think that teams like to be independent, so they are inclined to come up with their own strategies, just like how we rarely see duplicate bots anymore.
The one issue with no-bag that I can really be scared of is that a team will not finish their robot by their first event, and because there is no bag time they won't be able to fix the problem.

[BrennanB]

I'm not so dense that I fail to understand it happens in VEX (and FTC, I guess?) but this is not the VEX Robotics Competition; this is the FIRST Robotics Competition. We have gone in year-in and year-out with strategic design convergence happening in FRC. The venn diagram of "teams with the resources to fly out to an event and copy a robot" "teams that actually need just that one key to be any more competitive than they are already" does not have a large cross-section. Last I checked, VRC robots did not cost thousands upon thousands of dollars and be built with a custom structure like all of the teams you just mentioned.

There are plenty of teams that build multiple robots that aren't currently powerhouses. I can think of 20+ off the top of my head that are relatively mediocre (regional quarterfinalist/semifinalist) robots that would have the resources to build and copy another robot. And lets be honest, all you need is a few copies of a very powerful robot for people to be upset. (triplets flashbacks?)

Or like I said, don't build anything but an adjustable drive train till week 1. Build one robot and just copy someone. Or at least take heavy inspiration from them. Heck people could have build a wooden 2014 254 clone and been way more competitive than they were with their actual robot.

[Cory]

There are plenty of teams that build multiple robots that aren't currently powerhouses. I can think of 20+ off the top of my head that are relatively mediocre (regional quarterfinalist/semifinalist) robots that would have the resources to build and copy another robot. And lets be honest, all you need is a few copies of a very powerful robot for people to be upset. (triplets flashbacks?)

Or like I said, don't build anything but an adjustable drive train till week 1. Build one robot and just copy someone. Or at least take heavy inspiration from them. Heck people could have build a wooden 2014 254 clone and been way more competitive than they were with their actual robot.

A team that would wait until week 2 of regionals and copy a robot like 1114 isn't going to be good enough to actually get the details right. How many 1114 clones were there in 2014 that were anywhere near as good as 2008 1114? And that was with 6 years of hindsight to utilize.

This just isn't a valid concern, IMO. Teams could probably make something that visually looks like 1114 (or insert powerhouse team here), but it's just not going to perform out on the field. The only teams capable of copying them are making robots that are already as good as them.

[Michael Corsetto]

<snip>

Chuck,

Thank you so much for sharing your team's experience this season. I love the modular approach. I'm sure your students are learning a ton from the experience this season, for us it's been like managing a small production line!

We elected to not bag two of our three robots. Too much code, practice and iteration to do over the next two months for just one robot. We didn't get a picture with all three out of the bag, which was definitely a mistake! ;)

Regarding the withholding allowance:

Even if withholding allowance was gone, we would find ways to make the parts we need at the event within the allowable rules (we could bring in copies of each part and match drill all holes at the event to be within the zero withholding allowance rule).

Question for the group:

There used to be a clause in the rules about bringing in "functionally equivalent parts" or something like that. This allowed teams to have spares of parts in their pit without gaining a significant advantage. Anyone know why that rule isn't around anymore? These last couple of years I wished we could bring spares in, it would make me a whole lot less nervous about our robot snapping in half! :ahh:

-Mike

[XaulZan11]

It's really entertaining to me that people actually think this would happen.

It happened 7 years ago when 33 rebuilt their entire scoring mechanism to copy 67s at practice day of the championship. Of course teams would try it with all the additional resources available to teams.

[PayneTrain]

There are plenty of teams that build multiple robots that aren't currently powerhouses. I can think of 20+ off the top of my head that are relatively mediocre (regional quarterfinalist/semifinalist) robots that would have the resources to build and copy another robot. And lets be honest, all you need is a few copies of a very powerful robot for people to be upset. (triplets flashbacks?)

Or like I said, don't build anything but an adjustable drive train till week 1. Build one robot and just copy someone. Or at least take heavy inspiration from them. Heck people could have build a wooden 2014 254 clone and been way more competitive than they were with their actual robot.

Then why the hell didn't anyone do that? Surely it would not have weighed more than 45 pounds (in 2014) or be easy to replicate at a venue/through unbag time? Why didn't I do it? Why didn't 4476 do it?

Through the current district system a team in Indiana can register for 3 districts and their DCMP=4 events for $10000 and get 120 pounds of withholding and 24 hours of unbag time after "STOP BUILD DAY". Someone needs to call up 234 or 1024 or 5188 to scrap their whole machine now and start copying Arsenal because the opportunity already exists.

[BrennanB]

A team that would wait until week 2 of regionals and copy a robot like 1114 isn't going to be good enough to actually get the details right. How many 1114 clones were there in 2014 that were anywhere near as good as 2008 1114? And that was with 6 years of hindsight to utilize.


Of course, it won't be as competitive as the original robot, eg, 1114 will likely always be better than any copy that anyone could make.

I don't really think the 2008/2014 1114 clone analogy is that great. They are different games. 2008 all their robot had to do was get over a specific height, 2014 was much more of a precise shot. I'm fairly certain that if you made some 2014 1114 clones play the 2008 game, you would see a relatively close competitiveness level. Quite simply I don't think they would be unable to shoot the ball over a bar reliably. EG these robots could truss quite well. Just not score in the highgoal.

Then why the hell didn't anyone do that? Surely it would not have weighed more than 45 pounds (in 2014) or be easy to replicate at a venue/through unbag time? Why didn't I do it? Why didn't 4476 do it?

Through the current district system a team in Indiana can register for 3 districts and their DCMP=4 events for $10000 and get 120 pounds of withholding and 24 hours of unbag time after "STOP BUILD DAY". Someone needs to call up 234 or 1024 or 5188 to scrap their whole machine now and start copying Arsenal because the opportunity already exists.

Because it's not easy to do within the time constraints/withholding allowance as opposed to a fully unbagged robot that you can do whatever you want to the robot. And evidently not every team is going to do that. I'm not familiar with 5188 in 2014, or 422. But the other three i'm fairly certain are more competitive/equally competitive as a wooden 254 copy.

[notmattlythgoe]

Question for the group:

There used to be a clause in the rules about bringing in "functionally equivalent parts" or something like that. This allowed teams to have spares of parts in their pit without gaining a significant advantage. Anyone know why that rule isn't around anymore? These last couple of years I wished we could bring spares in, it would make me a whole lot less nervous about our robot snapping in half! :ahh:

-Mike

I would love to know the answer to this too. Did withholding allowance end up killing this? I can't remember if both were in effect at the same time (ignoring the year that withholding allowance got added last minute).

[dodar]

Of course, it won't be as competitive as the original robot, eg, 1114 will likely always be better than any copy that anyone could make.

I don't really think the 2008/2014 1114 clone analogy is that great. They are different games. 2008 all their robot had to do was get over a specific height, 2014 was much more of a precise shot. I'm fairly certain that if you made some 2014 1114 clones play the 2008 game, you would see a relatively close competitiveness level. Quite simply I don't think they would be unable to shoot the ball over a bar reliably.

Then give us an analogy that would fit this situation.

And bin grabbers from 2015 and minibot/minibot launchers from 2011 dont count.

[BrennanB]

Then give us an analogy that would fit this situation.

And bin grabbers from 2015 and minibot/minibot launchers from 2011 dont count.

I think that's the point. Right now it's not realistic to just copy a robot because of bag day. Removing bag day may make it more feasible.

[dodar]

I think that's the point. Right now it's not realistic to just copy a robot because of bag day. Removing bag day may make it more feasible.

So because there isnt any proof of this happening, it means that it would happen if the rule changed?

[Peyton Yeung]

Then why the hell didn't anyone do that? Surely it would not have weighed more than 45 pounds (in 2014) or be easy to replicate at a venue/through unbag time? Why didn't I do it? Why didn't 4476 do it?

Through the current district system a team in Indiana can register for 3 districts and their DCMP=4 events for $10000 and get 120 pounds of withholding and 24 hours of unbag time after "STOP BUILD DAY". Someone needs to call up 234 or 1024 or 5188 to scrap their whole machine now and start copying Arsenal because the opportunity already exists.

Why stop at just 4 events? Barring schooling issues, you could go to all three Indiana events, an out of state district, and the state tournament. If you bag all your withholding allowance for each event, you could theoretically have enough configurations of your robot by champs to overcome just about any challenge your opponent throws at you.

[cadandcookies]

Then give us an analogy that would fit this situation.

And bin grabbers from 2015 and minibot/minibot launchers from 2011 dont count.

Could you explain to me why you don't think those "count"?

[BrennanB]

So because there isnt any proof of this happening, it means that it would happen if the rule changed?

Yes. No bag day would mean it is more realistic to copy entire robots/subsystems of robots. I am relatively confident that at least shooters/pickups/hangers/whatever will be copied on a much larger scale due to it just being easier to do. Thus upping general competitiveness and lowering design diversity.

[PayneTrain]

Then give us an analogy that would fit this situation.

And bin grabbers from 2015 and minibot/minibot launchers from 2011 dont count.

A good analogy is all of the 469 clones that surfaced in 2010. In Michigan they have a lot of powerhouse teams that had the resources to copy their game breaking strategy and with unbag time unique to them. On top of that we had expanded withholding allowance rules in light of the massive snowfalls the northeast received that year. By MSC, nearly all of the major teams there had copied 469. Later on, 469 lost to 67 at World Championships with the mechanism they themselves had originated.

[dodar]

Yes. No bag day would mean it is more realistic to copy entire robots/subsystems of robots. I am relatively confident that at least shooters/pickups/hangers/whatever will be copied on a much larger scale due to it just being easier to do. Thus upping general competitiveness and lowering design diversity.

So you believe teams will spend tens of thousands of dollars to "compete" early on and wait till good teams play and then try to copy what they have based off streams and then hope that what they tried to copy will help them maybe when a later regional?

Show me a team that will do that and I will show you the worst set of mentors in FIRST.

[dodar]

A good analogy is all of the 469 clones that surfaced in 2010. In Michigan they have a lot of powerhouse teams that had the resources to copy their game breaking strategy and with unbag time unique to them. On top of that we had expanded withholding allowance rules in light of the massive snowfalls the northeast received that year. By MSC, nearly all of the major teams there had copied 469. Later on, 469 lost to 67 at World Championships with the mechanism they themselves had originated.

Post a link to 1 robot that copied 469 from 2010 and having it pay off significantly. I sure dont remember it.

[AllenGregoryIV]

We regularly make in season changes to our robot based on what other teams did that year and we are definitely doing it this year. The copies won't get you 100% there but they can definitely help. We did a full robot rebuild last year that got us at least into the playoffs at both our regionals and at championship. Last year we actually took a lot of inspiration from 118 and 1678 for the rebuild, so I guess we choose pretty well. Hopefully we don't have to do that much of a rebuild ever again but you can do a lot with 30 pounds of fabricated parts at 3 events. The bag rules make the changes harder but not impossible and even without them no one is going to take 254, 1114, or 118s design and make a better version during competition season, it's just not possible.

[PayneTrain]

Post a link to 1 robot that copied 469 from 2010 and having it pay off significantly. I sure dont remember it.

Me either.

[dodar]

Could you explain to me why you don't think those "count"?

Because there was only a limited amount of ways to actually build these things, 99% were made to be modular to begin with, and to be competitive everyone had to build them to begin with.

[AdamHeard]

I think that's the point. Right now it's not realistic to just copy a robot because of bag day. Removing bag day may make it more feasible.

It's not realistic for most teams, but it is possible for some teams currently (with high resources).

Any time the combination of the rules and the metagame making something that only elite and well resourced teams can do a huge competitive advantage, it's a bummer.

It's not possible to level the playing field entirely, but the more we can remove areas where throwing time and money at the problem (past the point of diminishing returns for most teams) the better for everyone.

[Rangel(kf7fdb)]

Then give us an analogy that would fit this situation.

And bin grabbers from 2015 and minibot/minibot launchers from 2011 dont count.

Not that I agree or disagree with the argument but why wouldn't bin grabbers and minibots count? If anything they are perfect arguments for teams cloning each other within the withholding allowance rules. In my view, it can definitely be argued that lessening the risk of copying would drastically increase copying. A team doesn't even have to commit to the situation being described where a team waits until week 1 of regionals to start building. They could just build two robots like they already do. One that they build to the best design they could come up with and another to copy another team if their design can't cut it.

I'm not sure where I stand on having bag day. I'm not so sure it would lift the bottom teams up all that much rather than just solidify the dominance of the elite teams. Even if elite teams mess up and have a bad year, they can just copy or redesign much more easily.

[dodar]

We regularly make in season changes to our robot based on what other teams did that year and we are definitely doing it this year. The copies won't get you 100% there but they can definitely help. We did a full robot rebuild last year that got us at least into the playoffs at both our regionals and at championship. Last year we actually took a lot of inspiration from 118 and 1678 for the rebuild, so I guess we choose pretty well. Hopefully we don't have to do that much of a rebuild ever again but you can do a lot with 30 pounds of fabricated parts at 3 events. The bag rules make the changes harder but not impossible and even without them no one is going to take 254, 1114, or 118s design and make a better version during competition season, it's just not possible.

Yes, but you guys didnt build half a robot just trying to wait to see what 118 and 254 and 1114 built to copy it later. You modified what the complete robot you had, not just copying what they built and placing it on top of your half built robot.

[nikeairmancurry]

A good analogy is all of the 469 clones that surfaced in 2010. In Michigan they have a lot of powerhouse teams that had the resources to copy their game breaking strategy and with unbag time unique to them. On top of that we had expanded withholding allowance rules in light of the massive snowfalls the northeast received that year. By MSC, nearly all of the major teams there had copied 469. Later on, 469 lost to 67 at World Championships with the mechanism they themselves had originated.

I totally disagree with this. Only 51 tried something similar as a re-director into the goals. Others just put up a piece of lexan to keep them on their side of the field.

No one could copy 469.

[PayneTrain]

Not that I agree or disagree with the argument but why wouldn't bin grabbers and minibots count? If anything they are perfect arguments for teams cloning each other within the withholding allowance rules. In my view, it can definitely be argued that lessening the risk of copying would drastically increase copying. A team doesn't even have to commit to the situation being described where a team waits until week 1 of regionals to start building. They could just build two robots like they already do. One that they build to the best design they could come up with and another to copy another team if their design can't cut it.

I'm not sure where I stand on having bag day. I'm not so sure it would lift the bottom teams up all that much rather than just solidify the dominance of the elite teams. Even if elite teams mess up and have a bad year, they can just copy or redesign much more easily.

They are places where the metagame placed an undue level of emphasis on because of how much of its overall value was tied to its weight w/r/t withholding allowance and the tight, high level requirements necessary to gain the desired competitive advantage led to design convergence "organically" in the way that mold organically gets in wet drywall.

[Karthik]

Post a link to 1 robot that copied 469 from 2010 and having it pay off significantly. I sure dont remember it.

Me either.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-dA2Ge-7jh8Y/S7pTiiRwK9I/AAAAAAAApHs/YPPZ7TRHLt8/s1024-Ic42/DSC_0987.JPG

;)

Team 1815, 3rd overall pick at GTR in 2010.

[PayneTrain]

I totally disagree with this. Only 51 tried something similar as a re-director into the goals. Others just put up a piece of lexan to keep them on their side of the field.

No one could copy 469.

It's not your fault that this happened to you and dodar, but you are making the exact point I was trying to make. I created fiction to respond to the other fiction in the thread.

[BrennanB]

No one could copy 469.

And if a top level team had full access to their robot for 4-5 weeks before championships...? I'm sure people could do a decent copy.

[AllenGregoryIV]

Yes, but you guys didnt build half a robot just trying to wait to see what 118 and 254 and 1114 built to copy it later. You modified what the complete robot you had, not just copying what they built and placing it on top of your half built robot.

We completely destroyed our bagged robot. it was down to an electronics panel, and two drive rails. The rest we built between week 1 and week 2 and at the event.

This year we bagged an intake and a drive train. In all likely hood by champs we will only be using the drive train still. The intake will probably get replaced and a whole lot will be mounted on top.

[mathking]

I think it depends on what you want to teach the students. What if the engineers at Google had decided that because cars are vehicles driven by people, they couldn't start to automate that process.

What if the Wright brothers had listened to the whole world telling them that it was impossible to fly? Where would this world be if all the engineers and inventors just accepted what is and what has been assumed? Cars? Space exploration? Computers?

I don't disagree with this but I don't think it is the right analogy. If the self-driving car engineers had come up with a self driving jet pack it would be amazing and cool and not what they were asked to do. I am all for trying to find crazy ways to play the game and coming up with really innovative mechanisms and designs that are fantastic and effective. And honestly I don't think a team that put two robots in the bag with the intent of one being spare parts for the other did anything wrong at all. It's pretty brilliant, particularly for a game as rugged as this one is likely to be.

In this situation, and in pretty much every situation where we start a discussion like this about what is the right way to do things or what is fair in FRC, I think about what makes the competition fun and exciting for the most people. The mission of the organization (in regards to FRC) is to change the culture by providing a competition that makes STEM exciting and fun for high school students. So while I do think FIRST is not necessarily setting out to make things "fair" they have pretty solid reason to keep things "fair enough" that people (kids and mentors) stay interested.

[dodar]

We completely destroyed our bagged robot. it was down to an electronics panel, and two drive rails. The rest we built between week 1 and week 2 and at the event.


So the rest of your robot weighed about 30lbs?

[notmattlythgoe]

So the rest of your robot weighed about 30lbs?

Anything they built at the event didn't count in the weight allowance.

[dodar]

Anything they built at the event didn't count in the weight allowance.

2 drive rails + electronics panel weighs what maybe 30lbs + 30lbs from withholding, so that means they build about 50-60lbs at an event?

[PayneTrain]

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-dA2Ge-7jh8Y/S7pTiiRwK9I/AAAAAAAApHs/YPPZ7TRHLt8/s1024-Ic42/DSC_0987.JPG

;)

Team 1815, 3rd overall pick at GTR in 2010.

tyvm for adding the emoji

Since I wasn't at that event and I assume you were, could you tell us if 1815 came to the event with the deflector in their crate or not?

[nikeairmancurry]

And if a top level team had full access to their robot for 4-5 weeks before championships...? I'm sure people could do a decent copy.

This is possible, but no one did. They just made variations to fit there existing robot. It wasn't like can grabbers or mini bots ramps, it required a full design change.

[notmattlythgoe]

2 drive rails + electronics panel weighs what maybe 30lbs + 30lbs from withholding, so that means they build about 50-60lbs at an event?

Definitely possible. I watched 836 bring in a ton of raw materials to Chesapeake last year and completely rebuild their robot. They practiced building it at home so they knew exactly what they needed to do.

[BrennanB]

This is possible, but no one did. They just made variations to fit there existing robot. It wasn't like can grabbers or mini bots ramps, it required a full design change.

I believe you are missing the point. With a bag day, yes it was hard to do. Without a bag day it becomes all to feasible.

[nikeairmancurry]

I believe you are missing the point. With a bag day, yes it was hard to do. Without a bag day it becomes all to feasible.

Paynes initial comment was with "Bag Time".

[dodar]

I believe you are missing the point. With a bag day, yes it was hard to do. Without a bag day it becomes all to feasible.

Why dont you just drop the "feasible" thing and say what you are wanting to. You are hiding "they will do it" behind the word feasible.

Just because they can, doesnt mean they will. Nor could most.

[FarmerJohn]

I believe you are missing the point. With a bag day, yes it was hard to do. Without a bag day it becomes all to feasible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWHwDfpeYjo&feature=youtu.be

Here's 118's robot. Show me your design for a similar version of what they did that is equally as effective if not more effective than their solution. You have four weeks.

[s_forbes]

It seems like a clear wording to me... and doesn't change the original intent of the rule. I'm not sure what we're supposed to be upset about in this thread. :confused:

Nevermind, I got it now.

http://i.imgur.com/nke8BLY.gif

[AllenGregoryIV]

2 drive rails + electronics panel weighs what maybe 30lbs + 30lbs from withholding, so that means they build about 50-60lbs at an event?

30lbs of fabricated parts is allowed to be brought in, most of the robot is COTS now a days. Motors, gearboxes, pneumatics, etc. We used some pieces from the previous "robot" but mostly just as raw material because it was powder coated. The total robot weight was about 90lbs last year.

[BrennanB]

Why dont you just drop the "feasible" thing and say what you are wanting to. You are hiding "they will do it" behind the word feasible.

Just because they can, doesnt mean they will. Nor could most.

You are absolutely right. But it only takes a couple successful copies to start changing FIRST's culture from a make our own design decisions to, lets just copy the robot. That shift has already started to happen. For example:

Minibots/233's deployment 2011
Stingers 2012
10 point hangers 2013
Goalie poles/33's hulahoop 2014
Cangrabbers/intakes 2015

You are completely entitled to your opinion, I just feel differently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWHwDfpeYjo&feature=youtu.be

Here's 118's robot. Show me your design for a similar version of what they did that is equally as effective if not more effective than their solution. You have four weeks.

My answer to you is: (feel free to sub out 1114 for any xxxx team you feel like)

Also, since this isn't legal for an FRC game, I don't forsee any team taking you up on this offer to copy 118 (or any robot), spending plenty of manhours and thousands of dollars for an illegal robot just to prove you wrong.

Of course, it won't be as competitive as the original robot, eg, 1114 will likely always be better than any copy that anyone could make.

[Doug G]

Can we just get rid of bag day and withholding allowances already?

DITTO!!

Sorry to derail this... but I can't help myself

I didn't used to be in favor of this, but these past two seasons have really made me re-think my position. I'm tired of raising money for VEX, AndyMark, and McMaster. Don't get me wrong, I love these vendors but the amount of extra parts we purchase to build multiple robots and to also have spare parts is getting ridiculous. This money could be used to help pay for student travel to competition, tools, etc... But we do it to stay competitive and it extends our build season.

For the first time this year, we planned on developing a "scaling" system post bag n tag. We figure after the first couple weeks of competition, we will be able to better determine which method is easiest, lightest, and reliable. So the "bag n tag" restriction isn't really a restriction since you have withholding allowance.

Bag-n-tag is keeping underfunded teams from being competitive. My team is practicing at a location setup by another team that doesn't have resources to build second bot. They unlock the facility for us and watch us practice, which is incredibly gracious of them, but I feel bad for them... they need to practice too!

Get rid of "bag & tag" / "stop build day"... it has lost the significance it used to have.

[Karthik]

tyvm for adding the emoji

Since I wasn't at that event and I assume you were, could you tell us if 1815 came to the event with the deflector in their crate or not?

I'm fairly certain this event was Bag and Tag (part of the pilot that year), and I don't know if the deflector was in the bag or not. A lot of different stories went around that year and I don't want to comment on them without knowing exactly what was up.

[PayneTrain]

I'm fairly certain this event was Bag and Tag (part of the pilot that year), and I don't know if the deflector was in the bag or not. A lot of different stories went around that year and I don't want to comment on them without knowing exactly what was up.

... I just heard ... :) :/

[Michael Corsetto]

but it only takes a couple successful copies to start changing FIRST's culture from a make our own design decisions to, lets just copy the robot.

Two responses to the point that FIRST's culture is a "make our own design decisions" culture:

1. Many teams used Rhino tracks (a WHOLE drive system! :ahh: ) and copied Ri3D this year (as well as in past years).

2. Our team doesn't have that culture, but we might be statistical outliers. We follow Golden Robot Rule #3: Steal from the best, invent the rest.

Best,

-Mike

[marshall]

Dropped the mic...

Hey Chuck, it is worth reaching out to Frank and getting a clarification in your team's case. He has said that they will work with teams in this situation to ensure they are treated fairly (just as we were). I don't think you'll have any issues and I certainly don't think you have done anything wrong.

[PayneTrain]

Two responses to the point that FIRST's culture is a "make our own design decisions" culture:

1. Many teams used Rhino tracks (a WHOLE drive system! :ahh: ) and copied Ri3D this year (as well as in past years).

2. Our team doesn't have that culture, but we might be statistical outliers. We follow Golden Robot Rule #3: Steal from the best, invent the rest.

Best,

-Mike

I also thought FIRST's whole culture was to "create a world where science and technology are celebrated and where young people dream of becoming science and technology leaders" and didn't have much to do with all 3000+ FRC robots being their own special sunflower but maybe I picked the wrong day to stop drinking my Rockstar Sugar Frees.

[Mr V]

To those that think if there was no bag day that there wouldn't be teams that choose a week 5 or 6 event with the idea that they will finish their robot after watching a week 1 or 2 event are being quite naive. There would certainly be some that do that with the goal of copying the top performing robot from those early weeks. I'm not saying that they will all necessarily build a robot that performs as well as the original but it is likely that some will come close and maybe a couple will build one that does even better. I also think that there would be a few teams that don't decide which route to follow until seeing week 1. In the context of this year's game I could see a team building both a low bar and a non low bar robot and then deciding which one to finish perfecting to take to their event.

Even if the desire is not to copy a top performing robot you can not deny that there would be teams that pick later events to give them more time to perfect their robot, driving and code. It could make it quite hard to fill up those week 1 and 2 events and I believe it would be even more of a problem with areas in the district system.

[AllenGregoryIV]

Two responses to the point that FIRST's culture is a "make our own design decisions" culture:

1. Many teams used Rhino tracks (a WHOLE drive system! :ahh: ) and copied Ri3D this year (as well as in past years).

2. Our team doesn't have that culture, but we might be statistical outliers. We follow Golden Robot Rule #3: Steal from the best, invent the rest.

Best,

-Mike

To bring up an important point, why do teams care that teams copy their designs. Any time a time imitates something we publish/build we get super excited. I think I made more friends in FRC by publishing our 2013 shooter design than anything else I've ever done. Some fantastic teams used aspects of our design and went on to do great things with it, I'm proud of that. Why wouldn't anyone else in FIRST be proud if things they helped design were helping to inspire more students and put a better product on the field to get even more people involved.

[FarmerJohn]

My answer to you is: (feel free to sub out 1114 for any xxxx team you feel like)

Also, since this isn't legal for an FRC game, I don't forsee any team taking you up on this offer to copy 118 (or any robot), spending plenty of manhours and thousands of dollars for an illegal robot just to prove you wrong.

I said design. I never said build. It takes no money to design, and since you're so against improving robots between now and competition, you seem to have plenty of time to make a design in four weeks using what you've seen in this video. This is all theory. So come on, Brennan. I'm challenging you. If you think it's possible to look at a robot and copy the entire design, prove it to me. Deliver a cad model of a robot that other people believe could be just as functional as 118's robot in four weeks and I'll back you on everything you've said so far. Individual subsystems don't count, because those are copied year in and year out, that's just how engineering works. And if you "don't forsee any team taking...up on this offer to copy [a robot] (or any robot), spending plenty of manhours and thousands of dollars for [what could be a legal robot if they used their withholding weight correctly]", then you seem to be contradicting your previous statements that teams *would* in fact do this.

You're spewing a lot of BS with no backing and everything you claim to be fact is all hypothetical theory.

[marshall]

Steal from the best, invent the rest.

I can't believe you're teaching your students to steal ideas! That's intellectual property thef... ohh, whatever, it's what we do too and we're not half as good at it as you are and I'm jealous. And I'm jealous that it didn't occur to me to build 3 robots until you mentioned it. :D

[cadandcookies]

I said design. I never said build. It takes no money to design, and since you're so against improving robots between now and competition, you seem to have plenty of time to make a design in four weeks using what you've seen in this video. This is all theory. So come on, Brennan. I'm challenging you. If you think it's possible to look at a robot and copy the entire design, prove it to me. Deliver a cad model of a robot that other people believe could be just as functional as 118's robot in four weeks and I'll back you on everything you've said so far. Individual subsystems don't count, because those are copied year in and year out, that's just how engineering works. And if you "don't forsee any team taking...up on this offer to copy [a robot] (or any robot), spending plenty of manhours and thousands of dollars for [what could be a legal robot if they used their withholding weight correctly]", then you seem to be contradicting your previous statements that teams *would* in fact do this.

You're spewing a lot of BS with no backing and everything you claim to be fact is all hypothetical theory.

Hey, that sounds like something fun to do over spring break.

[BrennanB]

I said design. I never said build. It takes no money to design, and since you're so against improving robots between now and competition, you seem to have plenty of time to make a design in four weeks using what you've seen in this video. This is all theory. So come on, Brennan. I'm challenging you. If you think it's possible to look at a robot and copy the entire design, prove it to me. Deliver a cad model of a robot that other people believe could be just as functional as 118's robot in four weeks and I'll back you on everything you've said so far. Individual subsystems don't count, because those are copied year in and year out, that's just how engineering works. And if you "don't forsee any team taking...up on this offer to copy [a robot] (or any robot), spending plenty of manhours and thousands of dollars for [what could be a legal robot if they used their withholding weight correctly]", then you seem to be contradicting your previous statements that teams *would* in fact do this.

You're spewing a lot of BS with no backing and everything you claim to be fact is all hypothetical theory.

Not sure what made you think I don't think robots improving is a bad thing. I am merely attempting to imply that full robot copies aren't as far fetched as others may seem to think it is.

As for the challenge to "design a robot" that is almost identical to 118, maybe I will take you up on that offer outside of competition season. My other commitments come before proving some person on the internet wrong.

[Michael Corsetto]

Bag-n-tag is keeping underfunded teams from being competitive. My team is practicing at a location setup by another team that doesn't have resources to build second bot. They unlock the facility for us and watch us practice, which is incredibly gracious of them, but I feel bad for them... they need to practice too!

Doug, same experience for us! We've started a rookie team in Woodland and Winters over the past two years, and helped them with last minute changes/modifications just before bag day.

Woodland came back to our shop last weekend to take some field measurements and plan out their autonomous mode for competition, but they can't do much more than plan/write a basic structure while their robot is in a bag. Meanwhile, we're testing auto with one practice bot while doing driver practice with the second practice bot!

Personally, I wish Dean Kamen would let go of the "6 Week" sales pitch and work towards some much needed improvements to FIRST's flagship program.

Best,

-Mike

[AllenGregoryIV]

Personally, I wish Dean Kamen would let go of the "6 Week" sales pitch and work towards some much needed improvements to FIRST's flagship program.

Best,

-Mike

#113Days

[meg]

Everyone is getting upset on behalf of the "elite" teams. Are you all forgetting they'll have the time too? What makes you think they won't utilize it to the fullest. If I know Karthik (I don't really, I just like to pretend I do since we met last year :D ), he's probably already got a strategy for if bag and tag goes away. Something with multiple configurations of robots designed to scale up through the weeks of competition or align to what's needed.

I know for sure that last year, had there been no bag and tag, 900 would have walked into champs with something closer to the robot we left with. We called it day 2 into build season that the robot needed for regionals wasn't the same one that could get you into Einstein. Why not let teams build different bots/mechanisms/configurations and be able to switch to see what works best? Think of the batman-robin robot last year, how cool if at different competitions they could have used different portions of that robot!

[Joe G.]

The reason I'm not a fan of in-season "copying" and resulting design convergence has practically nothing to do with a personal desire for competitive edge. Rather, it has a lot more to do with the fact that coming into a FRC event and seeing all the radically different approaches and implementations is an inspiring experience. Seeing a huge array of mechanisms and systems, not just the ones deemed to be "correct," and the possibilities that these mechanisms has is an inspiring experience. Being on a team with a design that the students can call "theirs" is an inspiring experience. Seeing something cool that nobody else thought of is an inspiring experience, even if it doesn't work quite as well as 118's robot. Diverse robots enhance the inspirational power of the program, and I don't think we acknowledge often enough just how much the "mediocre but unique" robots inspire us.

[Joseph Smith]

Here's my take on the situation.

An uneven playing field is a fact of life. In FIRST, just like in industry, there are teams that have dozens of big-name sponsors who can afford to build a practice robot, and there are teams who barely have the resources to build ONE robot. And those well-funded teams have worked their butts off to secure the funding and resources, and to keep it every year. Removing bag and tag won't change the fact that bigger, better funded teams will have an advantage. Teams with experienced design mentors and a history of success will be able to make riskier, more outlandish or impractical designs work.

I guess my roundabout conclusion is this: With bag and tag, big high-resource teams will have the best robots, and smaller teams will have worse robots. Without bag and tag, big high-resource teams will still have the best robots, but they will be even better, and the smaller teams will have significantly better robots, but still not at the level of the big teams. Overall, both the ceiling and the floor for robot performance would be raised.

[Zebra_Fact_Man]

Steal from the best, invent the rest.

Isn't that just called engineering?

I mean, we all use the wheel, for good reason too!

[Doug G]

To those that think if there was no bag day that there wouldn't be teams that choose a week 5 or 6 event with the idea that they will finish their robot after watching a week 1 or 2 event are being quite naive.

That would be one way of trying to compete, but I doubt it would result in more teams being competitive... The more likely scenario is you rebuild a robot based on what you see after a week 1 or 2 event before you compete in week 5 or 6. Oh yea, that kind is already happening.

I also think that there would be a few teams that don't decide which route to follow until seeing week 1. In the context of this year's game I could see a team building both a low bar and a non low bar robot and then deciding which one to finish perfecting to take to their event.

Many teams already do this... it's called prototyping. We built a low bar robot prototype and after seeing how it performed, we continued with that design. If it didn't perform, we would have gone with a taller bot. But to do this, we had to stockpile a ton of material and pay for express shipping for items so it would be done in the first week. Wasted money.

Even if the desire is not to copy a top performing robot you can not deny that there would be teams that pick later events to give them more time to perfect their robot, driving and code. It could make it quite hard to fill up those week 1 and 2 events and I believe it would be even more of a problem with areas in the district system.

Are you sure about this? I can't speak to the district system or for events in other regions, but out here in the west, every event is full and teams are having to go out of state in many instances. Look at VEX events. Look up the early events (Sept & Oct). They seem to fill up. Why? VEX teams know to be competitive at the state or national level, to maximize the engineering process of iteration, to get lots of competition practice, you need to compete at several events. The top teams in VEX attend several events and iterate their robots in between. Isn't that a good thing?

So might early events not get the sign ups as quickly... maybe, but I don't think it would be as dramatic as you think.

We need to stop it with this "6-week build season" nonsense... those days are gone. Let's move on without B&T, save some $$, and level the "rough terrain"!

[MrJohnston]

If the goal is the increase parity in FRC, removing Bag-and-Tag, weight limits, etc. is not the way to go. Teams are typically strong because:

* They have professional engineers as mentors that have been in FRC for years.
* Their mentors have specific engineering specialties that more directly relate to building robots.
* They have access to high-end equipment.
* They are willing to really work to raise funds.
* They build robots year-round.
* They have a handful of students and mentors who are willing to commit to insane hours.

If you take a team with talented people, good funding and accesses to all the equipment and, then, give them more time, they are going to create robots that are far more effective than what "elite" teams can already create. They will be able to better take advantage of that extra time than less experienced or poorly financed teams. Example: 1114's crossbow can-grabber last year. Had there not been rules about bag-and-tag and weight limits, they would have arrived at Champs with it already fully constructed -and functional. And no, the vast majority of teams would not have even come close to copying that thing.

Sure, the extended time would help the struggling team to get that "cross a defense, shoot that boulder" routine down. It would also give them some practice time. However, the "elite" team would be working on something that would score two or three boulders and practicing full scrimmages with multiple robots. The deadlines are tough on lesser experienced teams, but they also keep "elite" teams in check. Yes, every team would have a better-functioning robot. However, it would not overcome the design flaws inherent to any team without professional engineers and lots of FRC experience.

If we want to truly create better parity:Look to help poorly financed teams learn how to raise money. Help them to find mentors. Take them under your wing and teach them what you know. Etc. In a nutshell, help them to become better engineers and teach them to find resources. Isn't that what our focus should be anyhow?

As for the thoughts on "copying" other designs... If engineers today never copied proven ideas from other engineers, we'd still be in the Stone Age. Learning from those who know more than we do is one of the best ways to improve. We spend time researching what "the best" teams have done in the past as a way to expand our knowledge base... Our boulder-acquirer came from the Cheesy Poof's 2012 robot. Our shooter came from a Ri3D bot this year. Etc. Sure, we had to modify them for our needs, but that's engineering. Want to support struggling teams? Show them what teams like 254, 148, 1114, etc. have done in past years. Much if it can be found online. It saves time. It saves money. It helps to overcome a certain degree of lack of expertise, etc. (Note: We do have very strong mentors on our team, I do not mean to slight them. However, even they admit, that they are not "robotics engineers." Many work at Boeing, so we'd really have an advantage if we were trying to make things fly....)

[KevinG]

Definitely possible. I watched 836 bring in a ton of raw materials to Chesapeake last year and completely rebuild their robot. They practiced building it at home so they knew exactly what they needed to do.

I was there and it was a particularly awesome thing to see.

[AllenGregoryIV]

Sure, the extended time would help the struggling team to get that "cross a defense, shoot that boulder" routine down. It would also give them some practice time. However, the "elite" team would be working on something that would score two or three boulders and practicing full scrimmages with multiple robots. The deadlines are tough on lesser experienced teams, but they also keep "elite" teams in check. Yes, every team would have a better-functioning robot. However, it would not overcome the design flaws inherent to any team without professional engineers and lots of FRC experience.

If we want to truly create better parity:Look to help poorly financed teams learn how to raise money. Help them to find mentors. Take them under your wing and teach them what you know. Etc. In a nutshell, help them to become better engineers and teach them to find resources. Isn't that what our focus should be anyhow?


The extended time would drastically help lower resource teams because higher resource teams have more time to work with them. We helped a team redesign their robot starting in week 4 this year, if bag and tag didn't exist that team, that won't compete until Week 6, could be coming out every weekend to practice and we could help them iterate on the design. We could hold more in season workshops and practice sessions, we could help make all the robots and the product that ends up on the field that much better if we only had more time. Right now that dream is sealed behind a few milimeters of plastic for most teams.

[EricLeifermann]

Sure, the extended time would help the struggling team to get that "cross a defense, shoot that boulder" routine down. It would also give them some practice time. However, the "elite" team would be working on something that would score two or three boulders and practicing full scrimmages with multiple robots. The deadlines are tough on lesser experienced teams, but they also keep "elite" teams in check. Yes, every team would have a better-functioning robot. However, it would not overcome the design flaws inherent to any team without professional engineers and lots of FRC experience.

If we want to truly create better parity:Look to help poorly financed teams learn how to raise money. Help them to find mentors. Take them under your wing and teach them what you know. Etc. In a nutshell, help them to become better engineers and teach them to find resources. Isn't that what our focus should be anyhow?



I can tell you that with out B&T we wouldn't build 2 robots, there saves 6-10K right there each year, because i no longer have to make 4+ of everything. Know what I can do with that extra money?

I can build a decent practice field and maybe get a permanent facility to house a practice field which i can then invite other teams in the area who didn't have a practice bot before who now do because B&T is gone and help them practice and get better.

B&T keeps the floor and ceiling low for low resource teams, I would know i mentored and ran one during college. Removing it will only raise that floor and ceiling for all teams, which is a great thing. A fully functioning and tested robot is way more inspirational than a robot that you built in 6 weeks but doesn't move in 90% of the matches in your 1 and only competition, because you didn't get any true time to test it.

Another thing i can do with that extra money is increase the amount of outreach my team does because now we have a legitimate budget for it.

[Chris Hibner]

I totally disagree with this. Only 51 tried something similar as a re-director into the goals. Others just put up a piece of lexan to keep them on their side of the field.

No one could copy 469.

Just to clarify - we unveiled ours in week 1, 469 did theirs in week 2. We didn't copy anything - that was our robot from the beginning. 469 and us had the redirection idea independently, but of course theirs was much more effective.

Sorry to derail the thread.

[evanperryg]

I don't expect everyone to understand that concept or why it is important but it's something we always set out to do... be that by throwing a ball 50 feet, or by building a new robot at an event, or by working with machine learning like cascade classifiers to detect the undetectable, we have a specific goal to do it. It's part of our team's culture and is as unique as our pants.


I applaud your team's creativity. Although it was unorthodox, you acted within the rules of the game and produced a good robot. Playing by the rules to a T requires a good understanding of the rules; getting creative while remaining within the limits of the rules requires an even better understanding of the rules.

My thoughts on bag day: Part of the reason Bag Day is a big deal is because of the "wow" factor. When a high schooler walks up to somebody and show them a 120 pound yoga ball launching monster they made, they're impressed. When that high schooler tells them that the 120 pound yoga ball launching (or tote stacking, or frisbee shooting, whatever) robot was made by a bunch of high schoolers in only 6 weeks, they're amazed. The other big thing about Bag Day is that it helps even the playing field between teams competing at earlier and later events. If you're competing at a week 1 and a week 3, you won't see much of the metagame, and you have much less time to make your robot effective than a team who will compete in weeks 4 and 6.

In other news, I was kinda expecting some change to the cheval de frise besides a change in hardware... can someone from palmetto explain exactly what was breaking?

[Kevin Sevcik]

Oh lord. Okay, first off, 8 pages ago I suggested you guys take the Great Bag Day Debate to a new thread so we wouldn't be doing this in a random Team Update thread. But no, here we are with a Bag Day Debate titled "Team Update 14". Maybe a mod can split the original 10-ish posts posts to a new Team Update 14 thread and re-title this one.

Second, I don't think the question is whether teams can effectively copy a week 1 robot for a week 6 competition and beat the original. Whether it's feasible or not, any number of teams are going to try it for any number of reason with varying levels of success. I think the more pertinent question on this front is whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. I'm putting Allen Gregory down as Good-to-Neutral on this. I'd probably trend the same, though I'd be worried about the long term health of teams that exclusively pursue this strategy. It'd be hard to get students motivated and excited in a program that's fundamentally telling them their ideas are always going to be worse than someone else's.

Someone up thread declared that mentors encouraging the wait-and-copy strategy would be the worst mentors in FIRST. I'd point out that, by definition, FIRST has some of the worst mentors in FIRST in it. This sort of thing is going to happen, and we should decide if the benefits of No-Bag are worth these problems.

In that vein, he's my list of pros and cons to eliminating Bag Day:

Pros:

No more griping/nit-picking about spares and withholding allowances.
More time for some low resource teams to work on building/programming.
More time for rookies to see what a successful design looks like, so they don't show up with a robot that does nothing useful.
More time for veterans to help some low resource teams. Assuming those teams have a late regional and the veterans aren't too busy.
Less resources spent on buying/building extra robots. Potentially freeing up resources for other teams and resulting in less stocking issues for Vex, AndyMark, etc.

Cons:

More time working on robots. My wife gets grumpy enough about the FRC season as it is. Taking away the nominal "break" between bag and competition won't help. I suspect there's a fair number of mentors that feel the same here.
More time for teams to procrastinate. There's still going to be teams that spend a lot of time doing nothing and end up with not much of a robot.
Large disincentive for attending early regionals. If you're a one regional team, you're NOT going to want to attend an early event. Most teams in, say, Mexico or Australia this year would have a significantly shorter build season than Texas teams. This change wouldn't bring ALL low resource teams up, just those near late regionals.
More incentive to wait and copy for late regional teams.

57 is only attending a week 6 event this year, and I would dearly love to have our robot out of the bag and out at Katy testing our withholding scaling mechanism and working on autonomous. I'm just not willing to boldly declare that my current preference for this season is an unalloyed good for the whole program.

[Caleb Sykes]

When that high schooler tells them that the 120 pound yoga ball launching (or tote stacking, or frisbee shooting, whatever) robot was made by a bunch of high schoolers in only 6 weeks, they're amazed.

The "we built this robot in only 6 weeks" slogan is so false for our team that I have become very uncomfortable saying it, and we don't even build a practice robot. If you think saying that is a fair representation of the work you have done on your own team, that's great, by all means keep saying it. Unfortunately though, this slogan does not accurately capture the reality of the effort many teams put into their robots.

[GeeTwo]

In other news, I was kinda expecting some change to the cheval de frise besides a change in hardware... can someone from palmetto explain exactly what was breaking?

That was originally here, but split off to another thread (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=145059).

[Mr V]

That would be one way of trying to compete, but I doubt it would result in more teams being competitive... The more likely scenario is you rebuild a robot based on what you see after a week 1 or 2 event before you compete in week 5 or 6. Oh yea, that kind is already happening.



Many teams already do this... it's called prototyping. We built a low bar robot prototype and after seeing how it performed, we continued with that design. If it didn't perform, we would have gone with a taller bot. But to do this, we had to stockpile a ton of material and pay for express shipping for items so it would be done in the first week. Wasted money.



Are you sure about this? I can't speak to the district system or for events in other regions, but out here in the west, every event is full and teams are having to go out of state in many instances. Look at VEX events. Look up the early events (Sept & Oct). They seem to fill up. Why? VEX teams know to be competitive at the state or national level, to maximize the engineering process of iteration, to get lots of competition practice, you need to compete at several events. The top teams in VEX attend several events and iterate their robots in between. Isn't that a good thing?

So might early events not get the sign ups as quickly... maybe, but I don't think it would be as dramatic as you think.

We need to stop it with this "6-week build season" nonsense... those days are gone. Let's move on without B&T, save some $$, and level the "rough terrain"!

I'm not saying that waiting to see how the game plays out or copying the top performing robot will result in teams being more competitive, just that there would certainly be a percentage of teams that take advantage of the possibilities that arise from being able to have a longer build season than other teams. Seeing how the game plays and what is effective is just one of the reasons to do so. More time to perfect your robot, driving and programming are other reasons.

There is a big difference between prototyping before you know how the game will actually play in the real world and waiting until you see how the game plays in the real world to start or finish your robot design. Fact is that we all have an idea of how game play will go and what the effective robot will look like and many times is does not how it actually plays out. In the context of this year's game many teams may have initially decided that the 5 extra points for scaling isn't worth it. However if you see that the winning alliance did so in part by having 2 or 3 robots scale each match that is likely to result in teams rethinking the importance of scaling and potentially do something like scrap their high goal shooter for a scaling device.

Yes in areas where a lot of teams end up on waitlists like CA (which is not the entirety of the west coast) all the events would certainly still fill up. Further up the west coast in the PNW District we currently see that the later events have traditionally been slower to fill and we often have to beg and sometimes bribe teams to attend them. That has changed somewhat this year since we adopted the MI system of assigning home events and the fact that 1 of the 2 week 5 events is closest to the majority of teams.

For my team our home event is week 2 and the 2 closest events were week 1 and week 5. I chose the week 1 event as the lesser of two evils, back to back district events or back to back with a district event and DCMP, if we qualify. By the end of week 4 there is a large number of teams that either fall into the guaranteed to go or guaranteed not to go to DCMP. If there was no bag day I can tell you for certain that I would have chose the week 5 event instead and there would have been a bigger battle for those few remaining spaces.

Yes continuing to iterate and hopefully improving your robot and/or strategy is a great thing and is what gives teams what I call the full engineering experience. Removing Bag Day does not further that goal. Making sure that teams can attend 2 events is what furthers that goal. You can then make those changes based on what was learned in the "real world" of participating in an event. Which of course is why I'm a huge supporter of the District System and Bag Day too.

[Michael Corsetto]

The "we built this robot in only 6 weeks" slogan is so false for our team that I have become very uncomfortable saying it, and we don't even build a practice robot. If you think saying that is a fair representation of the work you have done on your own team, that's great, by all means keep saying it. Unfortunately though, this slogan does not accurately capture the reality of the effort many teams put into their robots.

Was about to post the same thing. Saying we built the robot in six weeks is just not true.

And is it really THAT much less impressive to say 8 weeks? Or 12 weeks? It is still a huge accomplishment regardless of how you choose to "sell" it.

You listening Dean? :)

-Mike

[Nemo]

"Copy" is the wrong word.

If our team has a need to upgrade an ability, and we see a concept that works, and we conclude that we can use it to good effect, we are going to try to build something that uses that concept. But we're building our own version of it according to our resources and abilities, and according to what's possible given our existing robot and weight and space limits. We will put our own sweat and ingenuity into it, and then we're going to spend as much time as possible iterating and tweaking and tuning it.

"Copy" makes it sound like a team prints out a set of drawings, sends parts off to be cut, and then assembles a thing according to pre-made step by step instructions. Then tests it and finds that it works just marvelously on the first try.

Edit: Also, the experience of installing this new mechanism on Thursday of the next event and getting it to actually work on Friday is just *glorious*. It's hugely rewarding. Given the choice between going through this challenging and grueling process versus accepting mediocrity from an existing design invented by one's own team, creating the new, 'copied' mechanism leads to superior results in terms of both inspiration and providing awesome engineering experiences.

[SamM]

I think one of major aspects of bagging that isn't being discussed enough is that it provides an artificial deadline well in advance of the actual deadline to compete.

This, in combination with the time before competition to more accurately asses what they can accomplish on practice day allows teams to make the tough decisions about what they need to do to play.

While the floor may be raised for everyone, the number of teams showing up at the last possible minute(or after the last possible minute) for inspection with incomplete robots will also go up.

Speaking as someone who has organized (non-FRC) robotics competitions, without bag and tag I predict there will be a lot more no-shows and robots still getting inspected on Friday(or Saturday) than there are currently.

[AllenGregoryIV]

I think one of major aspects of bagging that isn't being discussed enough is that it provides an artificial deadline well in advance of the actual deadline to compete.

This, in combination with the time before competition to more accurately asses what they can accomplish on practice day allows teams to make the tough decisions about what they need to do to play.

While the floor may be raised for everyone, the number of teams showing up at the last possible minute(or after the last possible minute) for inspection with incomplete robots will also go up.

Speaking as someone who has organized (non-FRC) robotics competitions, without bag and tag I predict there will be a lot more no-shows and robots still getting inspected on Friday(or Saturday) than there are currently.

Have you been an inspector at an event? The number of teams not ready for inspection could not possibly go up. Without Bag and Tag we could also hold pre event inspection nights where volunteer inspectors/mentors come and help point out flaws in robots before they go to inspection at the event. Removing bag and tag allows for teams, volunteers, and the great people involved in FRC to find creative solutions to these problems. Yes we try to do this now but like I have said before there is only so much you can do in 6 weeks.

[EricH]

Here's my suggestion to improve bag-and-tag:

Cut the withholding allowance to 20 lb SPARE parts. (Or remove it altogether.) COTS items remain unlimited.

The loose translation would be that if it doesn't match what's on the robot already*, it's gotta be in a bag on bag day.

[insert "grumpy mentor" "back-in-my-day-we-boxed-up-the-robot-and-all-its-spares" section here]


*The definition of "match" is intentionally left a little bit fluid, because no two parts will be 100% identical--maybe something got an extra hole somewhere or something like that. I hate to use the "reasonably astute observer" standard but that may need to be what is used.

[Michael Corsetto]

Here's my suggestion to improve bag-and-tag:

Cut the withholding allowance to 20 lb SPARE parts. (Or remove it altogether.) COTS items remain unlimited.

The loose translation would be that if it doesn't match what's on the robot already*, it's gotta be in a bag on bag day.

[insert "grumpy mentor" "back-in-my-day-we-boxed-up-the-robot-and-all-its-spares" section here]


*The definition of "match" is intentionally left a little bit fluid, because no two parts will be 100% identical--maybe something got an extra hole somewhere or something like that. I hate to use the "reasonably astute observer" standard but that may need to be what is used.

Now we have to make any "new" parts at the event, right? So we'll outfit our new pit with a CNC router, mini-lathe, chop saw, and use Thursday to build-build-build all those new parts for our competition robot.

Your bag and tag rules just put us in even more of a corner. We have to waste more time and money to achieve our team's goals.

Why you gotta be like that? ;)

-Mike

[EricH]

Now we have to make any "new" parts at the event, right? So we'll outfit our new pit with a CNC router, mini-lathe, chop saw, and use Thursday to build-build-build all those new parts for our competition robot.
And of course you'll make those available to other teams to use, right? Floor just went up! ;):p:D



My opinion is that there are two ways this can go. Both have valid points for and against them. Both sets of valid points go either way (pro to con, or vice versa) depending on who is making the statement!

EITHER we return to a 6-week challenge (at least mostly) by cutting out withholding to some degree (see: FRC 10 years ago), OR we go to a straight-out "show up with your robot at the event" challenge (see: FTC, FLL, VRC).

While we're doing that, can I get ChampionUNSplit discussion going? :p

[Michael Corsetto]

While we're doing that, can I get ChampionUNSplit discussion going? :p

I am ALL for this!

[Paul Richardson]

Here's one data point for this clone debate: In 2014, team 1477 worked on a design that would have converted the robot into a "254 clone". Building that design was well within their capabilities, but the team decided not to use it, considering that the existing robot wasn't too bad and it would be a lot of effort for something that wasn't guaranteed to work. Just like Cory and Adam said:

A team that would wait until week 2 of regionals and copy a robot like 1114 isn't going to be good enough to actually get the details right.

It's not realistic for most teams, but it is possible for some teams currently (with high resources).

1477 is a pretty high resource team, relatively speaking. Not quite on the level of 254/118/148/1114 right now, but well above average. The students took their design for the 254 clone and turned it into an offseason project. Turns out, cloning a 254 robot is pretty hard, and it was really buggy because of small details.

I don't think successful cloned robots can be made in the 3-4 weeks between reveals and late competitions. It takes too much testing and iteration to make a top-tier robot (see 1477 in 2013 with 3 regional losses before winning one and then Champs).

[Doug G]

Now we have to make any "new" parts at the event, right? So we'll outfit our new pit with a CNC router, mini-lathe, chop saw, and use Thursday to build-build-build all those new parts for our competition robot.

This will fit nicely in my pit :yikes:

http://www.biodentlaboratory.com/images/pages/technology/haas_om2_th.jpg

[Mr V]

Here's my suggestion to improve bag-and-tag:

Cut the withholding allowance to 20 lb SPARE parts. (Or remove it altogether.) COTS items remain unlimited.

The loose translation would be that if it doesn't match what's on the robot already*, it's gotta be in a bag on bag day.

[insert "grumpy mentor" "back-in-my-day-we-boxed-up-the-robot-and-all-its-spares" section here]


*The definition of "match" is intentionally left a little bit fluid, because no two parts will be 100% identical--maybe something got an extra hole somewhere or something like that. I hate to use the "reasonably astute observer" standard but that may need to be what is used.


Doing that would take the ability to do significant iteration and rob the students of the full engineering experience. Yes currently many teams do not get to go to a second event and thus do not get the full engineering experience. However as more and more areas join the District System everyone will eventually go to two events and have the ability to properly iterate.

[AllenGregoryIV]

Here's one data point for this clone debate: In 2014, team 1477 worked on a design that would have converted the robot into a "254 clone". Building that design was well within their capabilities, but the team decided not to use it, considering that the existing robot wasn't too bad and it would be a lot of effort for something that wasn't guaranteed to work. Just like Cory and Adam said:


Actually this is a good idea, what other teams have attempted clones in the off-season? I remember Wave brought a robot to IRI in 2013 that was similar to 254's 2013 robot. AusTin Cans had a robot in 2013 off-season that took it's cues from the Holy Cows, Killer Bees, and other robots of that archetype. I've never seen a cloned FRC robot that works even remotely as well as the original. I'm pretty sure if teams tried to clone most designs just from CAD they would have a lot of trouble as well.

Our gearbox this year is based on 1114's gearbox from 2014. It met a lot of our design needs and we didn't want to reinvent the wheel. Even just building that part of the robot with a CAD file in hand took some reverse engineering and thought.

[FarmerJohn]

I've never seen a cloned FRC robot that works even remotely as well as the original.

http://i.imgur.com/ojsV2ff.jpg

[meg]

Actually this is a good idea, what other teams have attempted clones in the off-season? I remember Wave brought a robot to IRI in 2013 that was similar to 254's 2013 robot. AusTin Cans had a robot in 2013 off-season that took it's cues from the Holy Cows, Killer Bees, and other robots of that archetype. I've never seen a cloned FRC robot that works even remotely as well as the original. I'm pretty sure if teams tried to clone most designs just from CAD they would have a lot of trouble as well.

Our gearbox this year is based on 1114's gearbox from 2014. It met a lot of our design needs and we didn't want to reinvent the wheel. Even just building that part of the robot with a CAD file in hand took some reverse engineering and thought.

We all have to keep in mind its more than the mechanical robot itself too. Trying to clone the programming for the drive system (254's spline in auto from 2014?) would be hard enough never mind trying to get any of the vision systems working.

[EricLeifermann]

Actually this is a good idea, what other teams have attempted clones in the off-season? I remember Wave brought a robot to IRI in 2013 that was similar to 254's 2013 robot. AusTin Cans had a robot in 2013 off-season that took it's cues from the Holy Cows, Killer Bees, and other robots of that archetype. I've never seen a cloned FRC robot that works even remotely as well as the original. I'm pretty sure if teams tried to clone most designs just from CAD they would have a lot of trouble as well.

Our gearbox this year is based on 1114's gearbox from 2014. It met a lot of our design needs and we didn't want to reinvent the wheel. Even just building that part of the robot with a CAD file in hand took some reverse engineering and thought.

Our 2013 IRI robot was based off of 254, sort of. We used 254 as a reference but the robot we competed with at IRI was what we should have built had we followed our original robot objectives we came up with on kickoff.

I would say that the IRI bot didn't perform as well as 254 that year, I think alot of that was due to a lack of practice time with that robot. We only finished it maybe a week before IRI.

Which brings it back to the topic of copying. Copy all you want but if you don't get practice time in you will never perform as well as those who get practice time.

A good practiced driver with an OK robot will beat a non practiced driver with the perfect robot every time.

[GeeTwo]

Bag and Tag actually simulates real world situations fairly well. You've got to get the main piece on a barge or slow ship across the ocean a couple of weeks before installation/use on the other side of the world, but the techs and engineers can bring a limited amount of stuff in excess baggage. COTS stuff can be procured at the install site, or shipped directly there from the manufacturer. This very closely resembles the situation of my department's data collection branch.

As a simple way to prevent further proliferation of things which look like a robot but aren't, and to avoid incredibly long, complex rules, how about these:


The bagged robot (and spare parts) must weigh no more than 160 pounds (or pick another number) total for all bags. This applies both for initial bag-and-tag and rebagging after any demo, open-bag period, or event. Bags will be weighed by inspectors before teams may un-bag. Any overage is deducted from the weight allowed under the withholding allowance.
At check-in to an event, each team is issued a "robot button" (e.g. 2 inches in diameter backed with velcro loops) bearing the team number. The robot must have this button affixed in order to enter the practice field or the match queue.


This would allow duplicates of assemblies, but in order to have duplicate robots, they would have to be considerably underweight or have a lot of quickly removable COTS parts.

[Chris is me]

[image link]http://i.imgur.com/ojsV2ff.jpg[/image link]

I mean, doesn't that kind of prove his point though? The robot is on its side in the picture, when did 254 ever tip over in 2014? 973's wooden wonders were good robots and all, but I don't think anyone would say they were nearly as good as 254's machine, 973 themselves included.

As an aside: I don't think copying in FRC will ever be as rampant as it is in Vex. In Vex, you are mostly using a set of COTS parts that can be put together in a relatively finite number of different ways to achieve the game objective. There is less customizability and design flexibility than there is in FRC. The nature of Vex itself makes it much easier to copy and compete, and removing the bag won't make that suddenly happen in FRC to the same extent it happens in Vex.

With the argument that a powerhouse team would just build several different robots and give them out to alliance partners or whatever, when has that ever happened in Vex? That should be really easy in Vex, right?

[marshall]

Bag and Tag actually simulates real world situations fairly well.

Absolutely right! The struggle is real:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/10/us/mars-curiosity/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn

It landed Monday and will spend the next four days installing operational software that will give it full movement and analytic capabilities, scientists said at a news conference at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

And to think, all those NASA dudes had was a rover in a bag that they couldn't test with back here on Earth... Good thing they had Matt Damon to science the crap out of the firmware for them.

[KevinG]

Bag and Tag actually simulates real world situations fairly well. You've got to get the main piece on a barge or slow ship across the ocean a couple of weeks before installation/use on the other side of the world, but the techs and engineers can bring a limited amount of stuff in excess baggage. COTS stuff can be procured at the install site, or shipped directly there from the manufacturer. This very closely resembles the situation of my department's data collection branch.

As a simple way to prevent further proliferation of things which look like a robot but aren't, and to avoid incredibly long, complex rules, how about these:


The bagged robot (and spare parts) must weigh no more than 160 pounds (or pick another number) total for all bags. This applies both for initial bag-and-tag and rebagging after any demo, open-bag period, or event. Bags will be weighed by inspectors before teams may un-bag. Any overage is deducted from the weight allowed under the withholding allowance.
At check-in to an event, each team is issued a "robot button" (e.g. 2 inches in diameter backed with velcro loops) bearing the team number. The robot must have this button affixed in order to enter the practice field or the match queue.


This would allow duplicates of assemblies, but in order to have duplicate robots, they would have to be considerably underweight or have a lot of quickly removable COTS parts.

Mandating that inspectors weigh bags first puts a very large and unnecessary burden on them, particularly in the early hours when we're already having to deal with all of the teams that forgot their lockup form, have a torn bag, or (my favorite) bagged their lockup form inside with the robot. In a district model where our goal is to get robots inspected ASAP it's even less viable. That said using a weight limit is a viable approach.

I would make the following rule changes:

1. The maximum weight of the bag may be no more than 130 pounds. Bumpers do not count as part of the bag weight limit.

2. Bags will be weighed at the discretion of the LRI. It is recommended that teams weigh their bags and mark the amount on the sheet. In the event that a bag is found to be overweight teams will be instructed to remove items until the weight is met. Those items will be quarantined until the end of the event.

3. Robots that have not passed inspection may not be powered outside of the pit area. This includes practice fields.

4. COTS items assembled in accordance with the manufacturer's specifications are not considered prefabricated items. The assembly may only consist of components purchased as part of a single COTS item.

These changes would allow teams to ship a robot (even with bumpers on) with 10 pounds of leeway, and not place an undue burden on the inspectors unless the LRI sees something that deserves attention. The requirement that robots pass inspection before being powered on outside of their pits eliminates the utility of having two robots and also is a logical safety requirement. The COTS change provides a bit more flexibility to teams in terms of their spares, and also eliminates what I consider to be a fairly silly rule.

[D_Price]

it could for sure be of some use!

This will fit nicely in my pit :yikes:

http://www.biodentlaboratory.com/images/pages/technology/haas_om2_th.jpg

[Daniel_LaFleur]

Here's my suggestion to improve bag-and-tag:

Cut the withholding allowance to 20 lb SPARE parts. (Or remove it altogether.) COTS items remain unlimited.


I'd vote for remove it altogether.


The loose translation would be that if it doesn't match what's on the robot already*, it's gotta be in a bag on bag day.

[insert "grumpy mentor" "back-in-my-day-we-boxed-up-the-robot-and-all-its-spares" section here]


*The definition of "match" is intentionally left a little bit fluid, because no two parts will be 100% identical--maybe something got an extra hole somewhere or something like that. I hate to use the "reasonably astute observer" standard but that may need to be what is used.

Define match as "functionally equivalent"
Also, limit the weight of the bag to 200 LBS.

[AdamHeard]

I mean, doesn't that kind of prove his point though? The robot is on its side in the picture, when did 254 ever tip over in 2014? 973's wooden wonders were good robots and all, but I don't think anyone would say they were nearly as good as 254's machine, 973 themselves included.

As an aside: I don't think copying in FRC will ever be as rampant as it is in Vex. In Vex, you are mostly using a set of COTS parts that can be put together in a relatively finite number of different ways to achieve the game objective. There is less customizability and design flexibility than there is in FRC. The nature of Vex itself makes it much easier to copy and compete, and removing the bag won't make that suddenly happen in FRC to the same extent it happens in Vex.

With the argument that a powerhouse team would just build several different robots and give them out to alliance partners or whatever, when has that ever happened in Vex? That should be really easy in Vex, right?

It's not really a fair entry into this argument either.

It was a robot designed in ~ 2 hours and made in a day out of 2x4s that was top heavy as heck.

[The_ShamWOW88]

To those that think if there was no bag day that there wouldn't be teams that choose a week 5 or 6 event with the idea that they will finish their robot after watching a week 1 or 2 event are being quite naive. There would certainly be some that do that with the goal of copying the top performing robot from those early weeks. I'm not saying that they will all necessarily build a robot that performs as well as the original but it is likely that some will come close and maybe a couple will build one that does even better. I also think that there would be a few teams that don't decide which route to follow until seeing week 1. In the context of this year's game I could see a team building both a low bar and a non low bar robot and then deciding which one to finish perfecting to take to their event.

Even if the desire is not to copy a top performing robot you can not deny that there would be teams that pick later events to give them more time to perfect their robot, driving and code. It could make it quite hard to fill up those week 1 and 2 events and I believe it would be even more of a problem with areas in the district system.

This.

Believe it or not, teams will attempt this.

But the argument is, you either prefer bag-and-tag and it prevents extreme reiteration or you don't prefer it and put up with the inevitable cons it brings, such as this.

[Chris is me]

This.

Believe it or not, teams will attempt this.

But the argument is, you either prefer bag-and-tag and it prevents extreme reiteration or you don't prefer it and put up with the inevitable cons it brings, such as this.

Who's going to perform better though - the team that copied a robot off of a few photos in 5 weeks, or the team that built their own robot in 12 weeks, with several iterations and weeks of drive practice and tuning?

Being good at FRC consists of so, so much more than the actual design of the robot. Too much emphasis is placed on the high level robot concept being the absolute key to success, when it is ALL in the implementation and the details.

[Michael Corsetto]

But the argument is, you either prefer bag-and-tag and it prevents extreme reiteration or you don't prefer it and put up with the inevitable cons it brings, such as this.

Your point assumes that "extreme reiteration", or just outright copy-ing, is a "con".

I don't think it is. Copy away!

For anyone looking to copy our 2016 robot, good luck ;)

-Mike

[The_ShamWOW88]

Who's going to perform better though - the team that copied a robot off of a few photos in 5 weeks, or the team that built their own robot in 12 weeks, with several iterations and weeks of drive practice and tuning?

Being good at FRC consists of so, so much more than the actual design of the robot. Too much emphasis is placed on the high level robot concept being the absolute key to success, when it is ALL in the implementation and the details.

Oh I totally agree with you. My point was simply that teams will do it.

[GeeTwo]

Robots that have not passed inspection may not be powered outside of the pit area. This includes practice fields.

Currently teams are allowed to play on the practice field or regulation field during their designated practice matches without passing inspection. At the risk of some additional paperwork, what if inspection were split into two parts?

Pre-inspection would only include major safety items, such as sharp or otherwise unsafe parts, insulated connections, no electrical connection to frame, many if not all of the pneumatics rules, and probably a few others.
Full inspection would begin with or build on on pre-inspection and also include wiring details, final weigh-in, bumper rules, frame perimeter measurement

A robot must pass pre-inspection to power up on the practice fields or for scheduled practice matches, and both pre-inspection and full inspection for the filler line or competition matches. Only one pre-inspected or fully inspected robot allowed per team.

[The_ShamWOW88]

Your point assumes that "extreme reiteration", or just outright copy-ing, is a "con".

I don't think it is. Copy away!

For anyone looking to copy our 2016 robot, good luck ;)

-Mike

Not exactly. Some may view it as a con, others may view it as a pro. Either way we're both right.

I guess the point I was trying to make was either you get rid of bag and tag and some will attempt to copy/reiterate an existing design or you keep it and people continue to worry about other teams having enough resources to build practice robots....

[marshall]

Currently teams are allowed to play on the practice field or regulation field during their designated practice matches without passing inspection. At the risk of some additional paperwork, what if inspection were split into two parts?

Pre-inspection would only include major safety items, such as sharp or otherwise unsafe parts, insulated connections, no electrical connection to frame, many if not all of the pneumatics rules, and probably a few others.
Full inspection would begin with or build on on pre-inspection and also include wiring details, final weigh-in, bumper rules, frame perimeter measurement

A robot must pass pre-inspection to power up on the practice fields or for scheduled practice matches, and both pre-inspection and full inspection for the filler line or competition matches. Only one pre-inspected or fully inspected robot allowed per team.

This is actually what I thought the update was going to be based on some brief conversations with Jon and Frank in Palmetto... I'm sad that it didn't go this way but it is what it is.

[The_ShamWOW88]

Currently teams are allowed to play on the practice field or regulation field during their designated practice matches without passing inspection. At the risk of some additional paperwork, what if inspection were split into two parts?

Pre-inspection would only include major safety items, such as sharp or otherwise unsafe parts, insulated connections, no electrical connection to frame, many if not all of the pneumatics rules, and probably a few others.
Full inspection would begin with or build on on pre-inspection and also include wiring details, final weigh-in, bumper rules, frame perimeter measurement

A robot must pass pre-inspection to power up on the practice fields or for scheduled practice matches, and both pre-inspection and full inspection for the filler line or competition matches. Only one pre-inspected or fully inspected robot allowed per team.

It seems to be hard enough to get teams to inspect the first time. Asking them to do it twice. Especially at District events where we don't have a full practice day to get it done.

[Richard Wallace]

From the Manual:

ROBOTS are permitted to participate in scheduled Practice MATCHES prior to passing Inspection.
However, the FIRST Technical Advisor (FTA), LRI or Head REFEREE may determine at any time that the ROBOT is unsafe, per Section 3 (3.4.1 Safety Rules), and may prohibit further participation in Practice MATCHES until the condition is corrected and the ROBOT passes Inspection.

Many years ago as a new LRI, I tried to implement what Gus suggested. Turned out it was too confusing for teams and volunteers alike. The Manual (quoted above) has it right, IMHO.

[BrennanB]

It's not really a fair entry into this argument either.

It was a robot designed in ~ 2 hours and made in a day out of 2x4s that was top heavy as heck.

It is however a decent indication that if 973 can build a semi competitive clone in a day, a much more average team should be able to do it in a few weeks?

1477 chimed in saying that they tried to do it and weren't overly successful, so maybe less teams than I thought would be able to pull the copy off.

2826 did a copy of 2013 254, which was (lets be honest here) a ridiculously complex robot. I dunno what timeline that was, but probably a bunch of time.

Of course all these examples show that the copies aren't as good as the originals, but that was the premise from the start anyways, so not sure why we are still commentating on it. The point is that it could very well up their competitiveness.

So then what don't I like about it then? Seems like a win win?

In my experience in other programs (albeit easier to modify and lower budget) teams have this need to be all secretive of their designs and compete late. Someone brought up VEX competitions filling early september and october. Basically those aren't any of the good teams. And usually whenever a design gets revealed/leaked before world championships it means it was done against the team's will/it was an old design and they already have a much better robot. A good example of this is the New Zealand vex teams which are incredibly strong and consistently put out championship winning worthy robots. They don't stream besides like their national championship very late in the season. Robots and teams there feel very distant to me at least. It is worth saying that there are some regions with webcasts and such do stream, Ontario being one of the main ones. I think the culture is slightly shifting into more of a sharing one too, but i'm not too involved in the VEX community anymore to be a great judge of that.

Plenty of teams already don't reveal anything until they absolutely have to keep their competitive edge. eg 1114, 2056, 2826?, 1678? I'm sure there are others, and for 2826 and 1678, I don't actually know those are mostly guesses in general they tease/reveal later in the season. Not that I don't understand the reasoning behind it and see how it's advantageous, it's just that I really enjoy seeing the robots in a polished way like 118 and so many other teams that put out videos earlier. Removing bag day I think would cause more teams to do this.

Copying is smart. Why re-invent the wheel? I just don't love the secretive nature culture that results from it, and I would prefer FRC not to be like this.

[mr.roboto2826]

It is however a decent indication that if 973 can build a semi competitive clone in a day, a much more average team should be able to do it in a few weeks?

2826 did a copy of 2013 254, which was (lets be honest here) a ridiculously complex robot. I dunno what timeline that was, but probably a bunch of time.

Plenty of teams already don't reveal anything until they absolutely have to keep their competitive edge. eg 1114, 2056, 2826?, 1678? I'm sure there are others, and for 2826 and 1678, I don't actually know those are mostly guesses in general they tease/reveal later in the season. Not that I don't understand the reasoning behind it and see how it's advantageous, it's just that I really enjoy seeing the robots in a polished way like 118 and so many other teams that put out videos earlier. Removing bag day I think would cause more teams to do this.

Copying is smart. Why re-invent the wheel? I just don't love the secretive nature culture that results from it, and I would prefer FRC not to be like this.

I guess I'll chime in since I was one of the people involved with that robot. That robot was inspired by 254 yes, but mostly just the climber. In fact that robot was 33, 341, and 254 all thrown together with a 2826 twist. We did in fact copy, and yes it is smart. But I would never do that again, much less in 4 weeks (yes 4 weeks from start of design to competing at iri). The most important thing we learned however is what we were capable of. We saw what these other guys were doing and figured out how to do it ourselves.

And in regards to the "secretive nature culture", I can't count the number of times teams like 1114, 254, 118 and so on have been open to explaining their designs. Thats why Wave is at where we are today, because these teams were open, and gracious to show us everything they had!

[KevinG]

Currently teams are allowed to play on the practice field or regulation field during their designated practice matches without passing inspection. At the risk of some additional paperwork, what if inspection were split into two parts?

Pre-inspection would only include major safety items, such as sharp or otherwise unsafe parts, insulated connections, no electrical connection to frame, many if not all of the pneumatics rules, and probably a few others.
Full inspection would begin with or build on on pre-inspection and also include wiring details, final weigh-in, bumper rules, frame perimeter measurement

A robot must pass pre-inspection to power up on the practice fields or for scheduled practice matches, and both pre-inspection and full inspection for the filler line or competition matches. Only one pre-inspected or fully inspected robot allowed per team.

I would be worried about the paperwork and also keeping track of everything, but it might be viable. The front of the inspection sheet could be used to handle safety and critical features, while the rear of the inspection should could be used to handle game-related requirements.

I would consider bumper rules to be a safety/critical feature, as I would not want a robot with illegal bumpers interacting with other teams.

[Rangel(kf7fdb)]

I guess I'll chime in since I was one of the people involved with that robot. That robot was inspired by 254 yes, but mostly just the climber. In fact that robot was 33, 341, and 254 all thrown together with a 2826 twist. We did in fact copy, and yes it is smart. But I would never do that again, much less in 4 weeks (yes 4 weeks from start of design to competing at iri). The most important thing we learned however is what we were capable of. We saw what these other guys were doing and figured out how to do it ourselves.

And in regards to the "secretive nature culture", I can't count the number of times teams like 1114, 254, 118 and so on have been open to explaining their designs. Thats why Wave is at where we are today, because these teams were open, and gracious to show us everything they had!

I don't think that's what he meant about secrecy. He is saying that if teams don't think copying is a big deal, why don't the big teams reveal at bag day or even earlier. I'm sure every team has their reasons but if you asked some of the teams you mentioned or other teams of the same caliber to explain their designs before they revealed it, I would guess you get a different response.

[BrennanB]

I don't think that's what he meant about secrecy. He is saying that if teams don't think copying is a big deal, why don't the big teams reveal at bag day or even earlier. I'm sure every team has their reasons but if you asked any of the teams you mentioned to explain their designs before they revealed it, I would guess you get a different response.

Pretty much yes, now of course there are other factors like finishing the robot is more important than making a video. (probably the most common reason) Was just stating that some teams intentionally hold off on their reveals till later to maintain a competitive edge. (which is smart)

[EricLeifermann]

I don't think that's what he meant about secrecy. He is saying that if teams don't think copying is a big deal, why don't the big teams reveal at bag day or even earlier. I'm sure every team has their reasons but if you asked any of the teams you mentioned to explain their designs before they revealed it, I would guess you get a different response.

We don't publicly show our robot, but we show it to our friends on other teams no problem, and that sharing goes both ways for the most part.

We also don't really ever get done in time to have a release video in a "normal" time.

We had the robot fully done in CAD the Saturday before bag day this year. It was assembled as much as possible at 11:50 pm on Bag night. The programmers had it for 5 min to do a quick systems test and then we weighed it and threw it in a bag.

Our release videos are done with our practice robot.