[FIRST EMAIL] Stop Build Day Survey

[Ty Tremblay]

I received this email today:

Greetings from FIRST®!

The FIRST Robotics Competition is looking for feedback about Stop Build Day. Stop Build Day is the day when Teams are expected to Bag and Tag their robot- putting the robot they will be using at the competition in a bag, not to be worked on again until the competition event (with the exception of a few hours for District Teams).

We are eager to hear your thoughts and feedback and would greatly appreciate it if you could give about 10 minutes of your time to fill out this survey.

Please click on the following link to access the survey (or copy and paste the link in your web browser)

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/StopBuildDaySurvey

Please forward this message to any Mentors and Student Team Members over the age of 13 on your Team. This is a very important survey about a core element of FIRST Robotics Competition, and we want to get as many participants as we can.

Your opinions are valuable to us! Thank you for taking the time to participate in this survey. The survey will close on Monday, September 26th at 5pm ET.

If you have any questions regarding this survey, you may contact FRCTeamAdvocate@firstinspires.org


Go Teams!

FIRST® Robotics Competition Team Support

[FrankJ]

Marshal? Here is your chance.

[Nemo]

If I'm a coach and didn't receive the survey, should we A) fill it out and give them more data or B) not fill it out since we're not a part of the population they want to sample?

[Cory]

This poll is bad and it should feel bad.

Seriously though, it is very poorly written and the way the choices are laid out does not make a lot of sense. I question whether the data they get back will even mean anything given that.

[SenorZ]

:yikes: :yikes: :yikes: :yikes: :yikes:

[Rangel(kf7fdb)]

This poll is bad and it should feel bad.

Seriously though, it is very poorly written and the way the choices are laid out does not make a lot of sense. I question whether the data they get back will even mean anything given that.

Agreed. I had to read through the first questions a couple times just to understand what they meant. The whole advantage and disadvantage answers just don't seem to fit with what they are asking. At least the Remove stop build day and keep it as is answers will be useful.

[Ty Tremblay]

If I'm a coach and didn't receive the survey, should we A) fill it out and give them more data or B) not fill it out since we're not a part of the population they want to sample?

Based on this line, I'd say anyone over the age of 13 is invited to fill it out:

Please forward this message to any Mentors and Student Team Members over the age of 13 on your Team. This is a very important survey about a core element of FIRST Robotics Competition, and we want to get as many participants as we can.

[Pauline Tasci]

This poll is bad and it should feel bad.

Seriously though, it is very poorly written and the way the choices are laid out does not make a lot of sense. I question whether the data they get back will even mean anything given that.

+1

[GearsOfFury]

This poll is bad and it should feel bad.

Seriously though, it is very poorly written and the way the choices are laid out does not make a lot of sense. I question whether the data they get back will even mean anything given that.

Yes.

"Is having 6 weeks a disadvantage to a whole bunch of stuff?" Of course.

"Are those disadvantages outweighed by the life lessons and playing field it enables?" Up to the reader, and the real question they should be seeking to qualify and quantify.

As another poster pointed out, the last couple questions at least hit that key at a high level. Doubt they will get useful data from the rest.

[ahartnet]

I thought the questions were laid out almost as a way to inform the general public (i.e. - a larger group of people than the CD echo chamber) about the pros and cons of the bag day rather than really collecting information on it. I found the survey to be a little confusing and that the first page seemed a little biased - but I think it's interesting they sent a survey out at all.

[frcguy]

+1

+2

[FrankJ]

The way I read it, low numbers meant you didn't like bag day. It seems a little late to be making this decision for 2017.

I issue I see with eliminating bag day is doing something rational with spares at the competition. Or maybe not. With only allowing 30 lbs of fabricated spares, no one will be bringing in a spare robot.

Keep in mind that First does monitor these threads. At time it seems to influence their thinking.

[Jon Stratis]

The way I read it, low numbers meant you didn't like bag day. It seems a little late to be making this decision for 2017.

I issue I see with eliminating bag day is doing something rational with spares at the competition. Or maybe not. With only allowing 30 lbs of fabricated spares, no one will be bringing in a spare robot.

Keep in mind that First does monitor these threads. At time it seems to influence their thinking.

If bag day is eliminated, then why would they keep a withholding? I would think that would go away completely and they would come up with some definition of "second robot" to say "don't bring this" instead.

[asid61]

If bag day is eliminated, then why would they keep a withholding? I would think that would go away completely and they would come up with some definition of "second robot" to say "don't bring this" instead.

That would be too broad of a definition IMO. One would keep withholding to prevent massive robot-sized mods to their robots. Withholding could stay, thus forcing a lot of teams to do nothing more than driver practice once they hit that 30lb limit.

EDIT: Wait, how would withholding even work? Ignore me, I'm being weird- they would have to remove witholding allowance. That does create the problem of totally new robots, but I doubt many teams will do anything more significant than they are already doing. After all, if they wanted to copy, say, 254's robot, they would have to do it in just a few weeks and get all their driver practice in too while other teams are just busy practicing the whole time.

[tjf]

First and foremost, the survey is terrible. The questions are incredibly confusing, and abstracting any data out of it should be done carefully.

Secondly, bag day, though a challenge is part of the larger one. Having only 6 weeks to build a robot is a very looming challenge, the stop build timer counting down like an evil overlord. To me though, it's part of the fun (or lack thereof when I'm asked 3.5ish months from now.)

However, if they were to remove bag day, you get into the whole Ship of Theseus problem of "if they change every part of their robot, is it still the same robot?" Where is the line drawn between "improvements" and "totally different" robot?

I digress, the survey stunk, and should FIRST want better information, the questions should be worded to make more sense. We may be roboticists, but we're not all rocket scientists. :P

[Jon Stratis]

That would be too broad of a definition IMO. One would keep withholding to prevent massive robot-sized mods to their robots. Withholding could stay, thus forcing a lot of teams to do nothing more than driver practice once they hit that 30lb limit.

But if we don't have stop build day, the robot doesn't go into a bag... why would I stop working on it just to practice? And if the robot is not in the bag, how do I, as an inspector, determine what is withholding and what isn't? Say a team brings in a 50 lb manipulator. If it's detached from their robot, do I call it withholding? What if it's held onto the robot by a zip tie, or a single bolt?

Without a bagged robot, "withholding" loses its entire definition. Besides, as the rules are now, I could bag hundreds of lbs of spare parts and it would be just fine.

[marshall]

Marshal? Here is your chance.

Two L's.... people with one are weird.

[FrankJ]

Two L's.... people with one are weird.

Sorry about that. But having 2 L's in your name doesn't stop you from being weird. (I have 2 L's in my last name as a point of reference.)

[RoboChair]

However, if they were to remove bag day, you get into the whole Ship of Theseus problem of "if they change every part of their robot, is it still the same robot?" Where is the line drawn between "improvements" and "totally different" robot?

In 2013 we went to 2 regionals and Champs. We built 2 robots(second was mostly just a drive base). At our first event we didn't like how our shooter performed so we made an entirely different shooter and that was our 30 pound withholding. At our second event we didn't like how our intake was working so we made a completely different one and took off our shooter so we could keep working on it. At champs we had a completely different robot than what we originally bagged. The only part of that robot that was not changed was the drivetrain.

Withholding and bagging is only really a hindrance to teams without a second robot and who only go to one event. 1678 stops working on our robot when we leave from Champs. I believe every team should get the same time advantage we have because of how we choose to use our resources.

[Hoover]

Asking if Advantage or Disadvantage. The only one's who see this as an Advantage are those that can finalize a robot in 4 weeks or less and 2 weeks of driving.

So I predict it will lean heavily towards Disadvantage.

Does FRC want this to be more or less of a challenge?

FRC: More

So a 6 weeks build is a disadvantage?

FRC: Then our job is done here.

[PayneTrain]

Two L's.... people with one are weird.

>wears zebra pants
>calls people weird

[Dan Petrovic]

http://i.imgur.com/LEQ4NzG.gif

In all seriousness, it does seem like it was deliberately written so that they can pull some data that says "Hey! A lot of teams like what the 6 week build season brings!"

At least the most important question is cut and dry. Eliminate Stop Build Day or Keep Stop Build Day. It's hard to spin those numbers in a certain direction.

[FrankJ]

Without a bagged robot, "withholding" loses its entire definition. Besides, as the rules are now, I could bag hundreds of lbs of spare parts and it would be just fine.

Without bag day, there is nothing to stop you from bringing a different robot to every competition. Not really a complaint just an observation. But with the existing rules some even built a new robot at a competition to replace the one they brought.

True under previous years rules you could bring two robots + unlimited parts if they were bagged. Well they had to fit into 2 bags. I expect 2017 rules will have a Zebra clause to address that.

Nixing the bag, I would like something in place to prevent teams from bringing the equivalent of multiple robots to one event.

Different line of thought. Writing good surveys is difficult. Must I see are mediocre to bad. Not that I would do any better. We should give First the benefit of Occam's Razor

[marshall]

Sorry about that. But having 2 L's in your name doesn't stop from being weird. (I have 2 L's in my last name as a point of reference.)

It's all good.

Ok, in all seriousness, this survey is kind of terrible and reminds me more than a little bit of the two championship survey so I can't wait for them to roll out a graph and blog post in a month or so explaining how everyone voted to keep stop build day...

I'm not going to make another case for getting rid of it but I sure would like to see it relegated to the dust-bin of FRC history along with stupid rules about pneumatics, spinning incandescent bulbs, and D-Link routers. Or hey, we can keep eating our young and ensuring that new teams have a hard of a time as possible.

[EmileH]

I responded to the survey with the most "I hate stop build day so much" perspective as possible.

And it was very hard to do.

EDIT: The grammar in this post is almost as bad as the survey.

[Jon Stratis]

Nixing the bag, I would like something in place to prevent teams from bringing the equivalent of multiple robots to one event.

I definitely agree with this... That has to be a very hard rule to write, though! How would you differentiate between a spare robot and a collection of spare parts? Under the definition of ROBOT that's been used in the past, it would be relatively simple to turn something from a ROBOT into a MECHANISM. Remove the radio and it's no longer a ROBOT, as it no longer has communications included.

ROBOT an electromechanical assembly built by an FIRST Robotics Competition Team to perform specific tasks when competing in FIRST STRONGHOLD. It includes all of the basic systems required to be an active participant in the game: power, communications, control, BUMPERS and movement. The implementation must obviously follow a design approach intended to play FIRST STRONGHOLD (e.g. a box of unassembled parts placed on the FIELD or a ROBOT designed to play a different game would not satisfy this definition)

[marshall]

I definitely agree with this... That has to be a very hard rule to write, though! How would you differentiate between a spare robot and a collection of spare parts? Under the definition of ROBOT that's been used in the past, it would be relatively simple to turn something from a ROBOT into a MECHANISM. Remove the radio and it's no longer a ROBOT, as it no longer has communications included.

Why is this an issue? It's not an issue for FLL or FTC or VEX... I've never seen someone complain about an FTC team switching out robots between events... granted, I don't pay a lot of attention to FTC but I have asked FTC student participants about it and they like being able to modify their robots and see improvements.

Also, I'd like to point out that a team can build two robots now provided they follow the weight and out of bag rules (it's a lot easier for district teams, trust me). They can't compete with both of them at an event and thanks to us they can no longer walk in with both of them but they can leave one bag at home and bring one with them and then switch them out after an event.

Which actually goes back to the original point, there is already a rule (new-ish) that a team cannot bring two things that look like robots to a reasonably astute observer to an event (Thanks 900!).

[PayneTrain]

I definitely agree with this... That has to be a very hard rule to write, though!

On page 25 of this document (page 27 of this PDF) you will find a rule that has already been written that satisfies this need under <R1>. On page 9 of this document (11 on the PDF) you will find another great rule in <G1> that I am sure the writers of the document would love FIRST to steal. (http://content.vexrobotics.com/docs/vrc-nothing-but-net/VRC-Nothing-But-Net-Game-Manual-20150612.pdf)

[cadandcookies]

On page 25 of this document (page 27 of this PDF) you will find a rule that has already been written that satisfies this need under <R1>. On page 9 of this document (11 on the PDF) you will find another great rule in <G1> that I am sure the writers of the document would love FIRST to steal. (http://content.vexrobotics.com/docs/vrc-nothing-but-net/VRC-Nothing-But-Net-Game-Manual-20150612.pdf)

FTC has had equivalent rules for ages now. Don't even need to borrow it from VEX:

<T7> Each registered Team may enter only one Robot (a Robot built to play the current season’s game
challenge) into the FIRST Tech Challenge Competition. It is expected that Teams will make changes to their
Robot throughout the season and at competitions.
a. It is against the intent of this rule to compete with one Robot while a second is being modified or
assembled at a Tournament.
b. It is against the intent of this rule to switch back and forth between multiple Robots at a Tournament.
c. It is against the intent of this rule to register and attend concurrent Events with a second Robot.
Violations of this rule will immediately be considered egregious, as they would be considered a deliberate
violation of the rule.

Obviously doesn't include all the subsystems stuff, but I'm not entirely sure that's necessary anyways.

[Hitchhiker 42]

For now, I think removing stop build day will give too much of an advantage to district teams, who will be able to see how they perform before iterating it more and more, as compared to 1-regional teams who only get to play one event and can't really improve more. Because of this, removing stop build day will favor district teams even more when Champs rolls around.

[Lil' Lavery]

I agree that the questions were confusing and difficult to parse. I hope this is only the first step in their (public) research process on this issue.


As this thread is starting to (d)evolve into a discussion of the actual possibility of eliminating bag day, I have one main thought on that. Nobody knows. Anyone who speaks with certainty on how the elimination of bag day would impact teams' robots, teams' performance, teams' mental health, teams' sustainability, or FRC as a whole is talking out their behind. At this point there's little more on conjecture. There are a multitude of factors in play, and almost certainly the elimination of bag day would impact different teams very differently. The bottom line is that we simply don't know. That doesn't mean we cannot pursue the change or that the change will be bad, but it does mean there's a lot of uncertainty.

[Ed Law]

The way the survey is written, I cannot think of a reason except the following

1) Hoping to confuse some people so with a large sample, the data will average out to the middle with both extreme. The conclusion will be inconclusive so we will keep things the same.
2) Questions are biased to educate/convince people to answer a certain way and hope for a certain outcome. The conclusion will be we will keep things the same.

If they really want to consider the possibility of a change, the survey will look very different.

[Lil' Lavery]

The way the survey is written, I cannot think of a reason except the following

1) Hoping to confuse some people so with a large sample, the data will average out to the middle with both extreme. The conclusion will be inconclusive so we will keep things the same.
2) Questions are biased to educate/convince people to answer a certain way and hope for a certain outcome. The conclusion will be we will keep things the same.

If they really want to consider the possibility of a change, the survey will look very different.


3) They had someone very inexperienced write the survey

[Ed Law]

3) They had someone very inexperienced write the survey
While I cannot argue that it is not a possibility, do you think something like this will go out to all the teams without management review and approval?

[Rangel(kf7fdb)]

While I cannot argue that it is not a possibility, do you think something like this will go out to all the teams without management review and approval?

I probably can. I can easily see someone who is very busy looking it over quickly and going, "looks good to me." It's also very possible that FIRST doesn't take the surveys all that seriously and more so to get the general idea of what teams think of certain ideas.

[Karthik]

FTC has had equivalent rules for ages now. Don't even need to borrow it from VEX:



Obviously doesn't include all the subsystems stuff, but I'm not entirely sure that's necessary anyways.

Fun fact, the FTC rule was written way back in the day when it was still FVC (FIRST VEX Challenge). That same rule was used in the new VRC for a few years, however we adopted the subsystem breakdown in response to teams trying to find ways around the rule and switch between robots during a tournament. As always, a simple rule became more complicated and bulletproof in an effort to stop some edge cases.

[EricH]

Anyone who speaks with certainty on how the elimination of bag day would impact teams' robots, teams' performance, teams' mental health, teams' sustainability, or FRC as a whole is talking out their behind. At this point there's little more on conjecture. There are a multitude of factors in play, and almost certainly the elimination of bag day would impact different teams very differently.
I agree on this, for sure. (And the same for implementing districts, but that's another topic altogether.)

Speak for your own team, to the best of your knowledge--but expect to be wrong, and don't be surprised by someone else having a completely different experience. I'd put money on two teams in the same area answering completely differently because they're not the same team.

Just for my team... I really don't know. I think it'd help us on the field, but then I look at the students who got burned out last year and wonder if it wouldn't help us more if you had to "run what you brought".

[David Brinza]

While I cannot argue that it is not a possibility, do you think something like this will go out to all the teams without management review and approval?
Have you used FIRST "updated" websites and on-line tools?
I cannot imagine they've been fully vetted and approved by management, given the difficulties encountered with new versions.

(It took me 3 attempts to get our W-9 form accepted in the new TIMS site this year.)

[edisler]

Ok, I agree, the survey was a bit one-sided, however, IMHO I would prefer to see bag and tag ended. Now I get that I may not have thought through of all of the repercussions but I really can't think of how I have been helped by this rule. As a rookie coach, in (less than) six weeks I had to not only deal with learning a bunch of technology that was unfamiliar but also how to be a good mentor to the kids. After a couple of years, I figured out that in order to be competitive I had to build two robots so that I could keep working on development after the deadline. Of course that means that we are spending twice as much for spare parts(If I can get them, after all, everyone else has to buy parts for two robots) and building 2 robots means that I am having to use our sponsor's shop to build twice as many parts as I really need.

During the meet season, well equipped teams are able to practice using their practice bot and use the 30 lb allowance to perfect the robot defects while smaller teams have to let their robots wait in the bag until meet day.

Isn't meet day a good enough deadline? What are the downsides to ending bag and tag day?

[roboruler]

After a couple of years, I figured out that in order to be competitive I had to build two robots so that I could keep working on development after the deadline. Of course that means that we are spending twice as much for spare parts(If I can get them, after all, everyone else has to buy parts for two robots) and building 2 robots means that I am having to use our sponsor's shop to build twice as many parts as I really need.


I disagree, when we build practice bots, we build two identical robots and then remove mechanisms from the practice robot as spares for the main competition robot. This works fine for us. so there isn't actually a lot more fabrication and manufacturing of parts necessary, obviously there is a necessity for more control system parts etc. but you would normally bring spare control system parts to a competition anyway. If you design the robot to be disassembled easily your practice robots mechanism can easily serve as spare parts( within the 30lb withholding)

[DonShaw]

There needs to be a stop build day at some point or teams would enter the last possible events before states ( if a district model) to get more work time in on the robot. Teams that get a week one home event would be impacted by the lack of time.

In real world there are production deadlines at some point.

Just my fifty cents.

[PayneTrain]

As this thread is starting to (d)evolve into a discussion of the actual possibility of eliminating bag day, I have one main thought on that. Nobody knows. Anyone who speaks with certainty on how the elimination of bag day would impact teams' robots, teams' performance, teams' mental health, teams' sustainability, or FRC as a whole is talking out their behind. At this point there's little more on conjecture. There are a multitude of factors in play, and almost certainly the elimination of bag day would impact different teams very differently. The bottom line is that we simply don't know. That doesn't mean we cannot pursue the change or that the change will be bad, but it does mean there's a lot of uncertainty.

Nobody knows what the long term effects will be of the ending of the single Championship event either but the alleged benefits have been touted by management and its supporters. The fact that accessibility has been increased from 400 FRC teams to 800 FRC teams is a fact that holds as much water as the fact that eliminating bag day can provide up to more than double the hands on time with the machine teams build during the season. Whether or not the sum of unintended consequences in both an already executed decision and the one being surveyed yields a net benefit remains to be seen.

FIRST is an organization made up of many parties of stakeholders that can barely be corralled into certain definitions of "mentors", "teams", "volunteers", "sponsors", "schools", "management", and "STUDENTS". Tickling the sliding scale is an inherently perilous exercise, which is why we rarely see strictly positive responses to any moves made.

When questioning why some people are ready to dive in head first into murky water, remember the organization has already done this many times and will continue to do so.

A good exercise that may be worth pursuing: here (http://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/frc/blog/where-is-first-going) is the blog detailing the strategic pillars for FIRST. How does the removal or maintaining of bag day stand on these pillars, and how does it falter on them?

[Jean Tenca]

I agree with everyone else on here that this survey is very poorly written. I honestly hope they do not use any data collected from this. Hopefully they will rethink the survey and do it again.

[Caleb Sykes]

I agree that the questions were confusing and difficult to parse. I hope this is only the first step in their (public) research process on this issue.


As this thread is starting to (d)evolve into a discussion of the actual possibility of eliminating bag day, I have one main thought on that. Nobody knows. Anyone who speaks with certainty on how the elimination of bag day would impact teams' robots, teams' performance, teams' mental health, teams' sustainability, or FRC as a whole is talking out their behind. At this point there's little more on conjecture. There are a multitude of factors in play, and almost certainly the elimination of bag day would impact different teams very differently. The bottom line is that we simply don't know. That doesn't mean we cannot pursue the change or that the change will be bad, but it does mean there's a lot of uncertainty.

Also, everyone should keep in mind that any discussion on CD is likely more biased towards competitively successful teams than is the general FRC population.

Source: https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=143630

[ehochstein]

There needs to be a stop build day at some point or teams would enter the last possible events before states ( if a district model) to get more work time in on the robot. Teams that get a week one home event would be impacted by the lack of time.

In real world there are production deadlines at some point.

Just my fifty cents.

Every team that attends a week one event will have had the some amount of time to work on their robot. The same goes for a week seven event, every team that attends (a week seven event) will have the same amount of time to work on their robot. The event dates are your production deadlines and at the end of the season you would still have a championship(s) event where everyone has the same deadline.

In Minnesota we use a similar registration system for FTC, yes the later events tend to fill up faster because teams want more time to practice but in the end it doesn't really make a difference. Most of the competitive FTC teams compete in 2 events, one early and one late event - the change in competitiveness from the first event to the last event is huge but each team gets an equal amount of time to work on their robot between events. At the state championship all teams are on the same level and no one feels slighted by attending an early event vs a late event (at least no one has shared that issue with me).

I did have one Minnesota FRC student and family come up to me at the MN FRC State Championship last year that felt the level of competition was unfair. They felt this way because the teams that had attended two Regionals, followed by the World Championship had multiple hours of unbag and practice time vs the teams that qualified at their first and only Regional but didn't qualify for the World Championship. Eliminating the 6-week build season would fix this (somewhat unique) problem.

As for the topic at hand, I would set my stance as neutral-leaning towards eliminating stop build day, that being said I do really enjoy having a six-week build season.

[jaredhk]

This poll is bad and it should feel bad.

Seriously though, it is very poorly written and the way the choices are laid out does not make a lot of sense. I question whether the data they get back will even mean anything given that.

It definitely has a lot of flaws but it should still very much be filled out. IF people don't fill it out because they don't think it has any merit, that will discredit it even more. May as well give it a shot and if they interpret it badly then that's really too bad but hey, we tried.

[marshall]

There needs to be a stop build day at some point or teams would enter the last possible events before states ( if a district model) to get more work time in on the robot. Teams that get a week one home event would be impacted by the lack of time.

In real world there are production deadlines at some point.

Just my fifty cents.

Yeah! It doesn't get harder to compete as the season goes on!

Ohh wait, we have that data, average match score by week:

http://www.thebluealliance.com/insights/2016

[edisler]

There needs to be a stop build day at some point or teams would enter the last possible events before states ( if a district model) to get more work time in on the robot. Teams that get a week one home event would be impacted by the lack of time.

In real world there are production deadlines at some point.

Just my fifty cents.

If you can afford build a practice robot then there is still an incentive to enroll in the last possible events regardless of a bag and tag rule. Having the extra time to practice and build spare parts is incentive to wait to the end, even with the bag and tag rule.
There is also incentive to enroll in early events in either case because teams are still learning the game and have not had time to fully develop their robots and game play tactics, thus increasing the odds for a more inexperienced team to be successful.

[BrendanB]

I'm not 100% sure how it would impact our team however what we have seen (for both my current team and prior teams) is that in order to keep up with the field second bots are a norm and if you don't have one you have to work really, really hard to pull it off. Teams like 359 have made it work with one machine however they are far from your average FRC program, but that's mainly in part due to the huge efforts they have put in to grow their FRC/VEX programs.

This year 1058 built two complete machines but in doing so our strategy/design discussions usually centered around us aiming simpler because we had to do it twice. It was really tight on a budget for two machines and the only way it worked for us was we made design decisions based around what COTS items we could reuse along with making one electronics board we swapped between them as part of our withholding allowance. The process worked well as we saw an increase in on field performance and our level of prepardness going into our events. I saw the same things on 1519 when we moved to a second machine in 2009, capitalized on it in 2010, and they continue to do so today. Same goes for 3467 we built a second chassis in 2013 and since then they've made a complete second robot.

Its really hard but its becoming the norm.

For me at least stop build day really just means we meet a little less but that's mainly because the prior two weeks were spent working our tails off because there was a deadline around the corner. We took a little time to recover but found ourselves spending even later nights before our Week 2 event and similarly Week 4 & 5. The reality is teams end up killing themselves twice now: once before stop build day and the other before their first event.

I would see it as a huge pressure relief for our team if we removed the deadline because the reality is for us with building two machines plus out of bag time before our qualifying events we are investing time and money into machines on a level that doesn't compare to my time as a student in 2008 when we finished the robot(s)*, put it in a crate, and didn't see it until our only regional that year a week later. That was also back in the day when there was no 30lbs of prefabricated materials you could bring to an event to upgrade your robot only functionally identical parts. If you wanted to rebuild your robot you had to do it exclusively at the event on a Thursday as simply as possible.

FRC has changed dramatically since then. We play more, iterate more, modify more, and meet more. The idea of a "6 week build season" no longer exists for most of the teams in FRC who compete non-stop especially with some of the top tier now building two complete practice robots or one with a prototype for software or "other" mechanism development. The short window between development of ideas, design, and the time to build a machine impacts some companies who can provide parts for teams. Giving a potential sponsor a one or two week window for parts doesn't always end with a "yes".

I do believe no stop build day would open many doors for some schools to bring FRC into the classroom allowing more teachers to start teams if they can meet during school and a little after school for a longer period of time before there first event.

*In 2008 we built two machines but they weren't the same for a specific reason.

[jwfoss]

First and foremost, the survey is terrible. The questions are incredibly confusing, and abstracting any data out of it should be done carefully.

Secondly, bag day, though a challenge is part of the larger one. Having only 6 weeks to build a robot is a very looming challenge, the stop build timer counting down like an evil overlord. To me though, it's part of the fun (or lack thereof when I'm asked 3.5ish months from now.)

However, if they were to remove bag day, you get into the whole Ship of Theseus problem of "if they change every part of their robot, is it still the same robot?" Where is the line drawn between "improvements" and "totally different" robot?

I digress, the survey stunk, and should FIRST want better information, the questions should be worded to make more sense. We may be roboticists, but we're not all rocket scientists. :P

It is already possible within the rules to change to a 100% new robot over the course of a whole season.

I am all for open build season. Save us the time and money of a twin robot and let us iterate as much as we want.

[Michael Corsetto]

I agree that the questions were confusing and difficult to parse. I hope this is only the first step in their (public) research process on this issue.


As this thread is starting to (d)evolve into a discussion of the actual possibility of eliminating bag day, I have one main thought on that. Nobody knows. Anyone who speaks with certainty on how the elimination of bag day would impact teams' robots, teams' performance, teams' mental health, teams' sustainability, or FRC as a whole is talking out their behind. At this point there's little more on conjecture. There are a multitude of factors in play, and almost certainly the elimination of bag day would impact different teams very differently. The bottom line is that we simply don't know. That doesn't mean we cannot pursue the change or that the change will be bad, but it does mean there's a lot of uncertainty.

Sean,

I agree no-one REALLY knows.

I think we can observe the lack of "stop build" day in FTC, VRC, Vex IQ, and FLL, and draw a few basic conclusions. I know that won't tell us everything, but I think it could tell us a lot.

+1000 to poor survey. I still don't understand that first question :confused: :confused: :confused:

-Mike

[marshall]

I still don't understand that first question

You should have cheated off Andrew Shreiber like I did for that one. :D

[polytechnique]

I personally think that competition quality could really be increased if the deadline was eight weeks rather than six weeks... I'm a team captain right now, and I've seen the same thing happen with my team for the three years I've completed. The stressful rush all the way through, having to ditch schoolwork (often with slipping grades) to finish a robot... it's a lot of pressure on high school students.

Six weeks for some teams, especially those with small amounts of man-hours available to them or shorthanded teams, I think is too short. It makes me really sad every time I see a team struggling to get their robot to function properly... when they're obviously shorthanded, scrounging for resources... and then to be crushed by a much higher-funded, higher-resource team with prestige and four banners hanging off their pits with a practice bot on display, etc.

It's a hard problem. But I think some teams just don't have the man-hours, resources or funding to assemble a competitive robot. I feel like getting steamrolled by another team without ever having a fighting chance doesn't inspire kids into a love of science in technology, but instead kinda... turn them away from it. I don't feel like that's what FIRST stands for.

[Michael Corsetto]

The way the survey is written, I cannot think of a reason except the following

1) Hoping to confuse some people so with a large sample, the data will average out to the middle with both extreme. The conclusion will be inconclusive so we will keep things the same.
2) Questions are biased to educate/convince people to answer a certain way and hope for a certain outcome. The conclusion will be we will keep things the same.

If they really want to consider the possibility of a change, the survey will look very different.

Ed,

I agree. This intro is pretty slanted:

FIRST Robotics Competition has a 6 week build period that encourages Team Members to be creative, work hard, take risks, experience failure and success, and develop skills while maintaining Gracious Professionalism. It is hard fun. By having the 6 week build deadline, there is opportunity for student and team growth, but also challenges for students and the Team. The next set of questions ask for your feedback on some aspects of the build season that may be advantages or disadvantages for students, the Team, and Mentors.

:confused:

-Mike

[euhlmann]

This poll is bad and it should feel bad.

Seriously though, it is very poorly written and the way the choices are laid out does not make a lot of sense. I question whether the data they get back will even mean anything given that.

Don't be so harsh on FIRST :)

I have to agree though. I don't think many of us here are able to generalize anything so specific outside of our own teams. FIRST might get some useful data out of the later parts of the survey though.

[Daniel4547]

I don't think anybody has pointed this out yet, but if Stop Build Day is eliminated then there is really no reason for a team to reveal their robot at all. If any team can change anything they want at any time, then no team would want to show what their design was because with several weeks another could completely steal their idea make an identical robot.

I know there are a lot of advantages to getting rid of Stop Build Day in terms of evening the playing field for teams that cant afford to make a second robot, but I think sharing the ideas that teams had and giving a quick showcase of what they built (like in a reveal video) does a whole lot more for making better competition than having more time to work on your robot and sacrificing the sharing of robots.

Also +1 to poorly written survey

[JABianchi]

I want to share what I wrote in my survey, as I feel it represents a viewpoint that is not voiced much in this thread, which may be more representative of teams that would be thrilled just to have a competitive chance of making it to the World Championships.

"Stop Build Day is an essential component to keeping FIRST equitable. With a longer build season, teams with many resources (money, school support, parent support) will be able to leverage those advantages to an even greater degree to the detriment of less-resourced teams' ability to be competitive and likely, less inspired. This is the same reason why we need to continue limiting the cost of the parts used on the robot.

"Additionally, coaches & volunteers that are stretched thin for those 6 weeks will feel compelled to keep up that break-neck pace for possibly double the time just to stay competitive, leading to much higher rates of burn-out. The way my team is currently structured, we would not be able to effectively compete without Stop Build Day. If FIRST is serious about reaching out to under-served communities, we will choose not to stack the deck further in favor of the privileged.

"The question is: 'Does FIRST want to be a club for the competitive elite or does FIRST want to create an equitable experience for a broad range of schools to realistically compete?' Far less than 20% of teams qualify for the Championship event each year. What can we do that will help that 20% have a high turnover rate?

"When the amount of time is limited, there is much more variance in a competition. This is why the NFL is the most equitable pro sports league in North America. Only 16 games, and single games determine elimination in the playoffs. On 'any given sunday', the worst underdog has a legitimate chance of upsetting the very best team. In any given FRC season, with a limited build season, even a struggling, under-resourced team can have a shot against some of the best teams. Please don't change that."

[BrendanB]

In any given FRC season, with a limited build season, even a struggling, under-resourced team can have a shot against some of the best teams. Please don't change that."

Could you explain this more? How would giving teams who only can afford or have time to build one machine be at a disadvantage from getting access to their robot over a long period of time?

Teams at the top end of FRC already have this with practice bot(s) and practice fields.

[Nathan Pell]

What is wrong with making iterative design changes and testing those design changes at a tournament? This is exactly what happens at the other high school level competition the First Tech Challenge and its great!

[virtuald]

As others have said, while the 'idea' of stop build day makes things more equitable in theory, in practice well resourced teams ignore it completely by building a second robot, thus disadvantaging lesser resourced teams.

I would like to see a happy medium -- have a stop build date something along the lines of "no major physical changes after this day", but still allowing driving practice and other minor changes (eg, you can fix things you broke).

Obviously, this is impossible to enforce, and people will lawyer it, and the details are tricky to get right.

[Nathan Pell]

There needs to be a stop build day at some point or teams would enter the last possible events before states ( if a district model) to get more work time in on the robot. Teams that get a week one home event would be impacted by the lack of time.

In real world there are production deadlines at some point.

Just my fifty cents.
As others have pointed out, I believe you can look at the FTC and VEX program as real world data/examples of what happens with an open build season. You end up with some teams who don't want to be very competitive and they bring what they made and go home and are happy with it. Then you get the competitive teams who enter as many tournaments as they can to make improvements. As everyone knows the real test is when you put your robot on the field at an event and play the game. That is when you know for sure how the designs and mechanisms end up functioning. While I also completely agree the FRC build season should be like the FTC build season I think this would be difficult to do until all of FRC is district based. By having events close to your geographical locations makes it much easier to attend the events, and they are usually short thus requiring less time (if any) out of school. Here in Florida I don't see teams not attending the Orlando Regional just because it is 'early' and they aren't ready.

[JABianchi]

Could you explain this more? How would giving teams who only can afford or have time to build one machine be at a disadvantage from getting access to their robot over a long period of time?

Teams at the top end of FRC already have this with practice bot(s) and practice fields.

That quote was a summary from my entire post, whose main point was how resources would need to be stretched out further with a longer build time. Teams with more resources have more of an ability to stretch them out. (Please note that money is not the only, or even most important, resource.)

I understand your point that less-resourced teams would have more ability to develop a better robot, but wouldn't the same be even truer of a well-resourced team? Or would having no restrictions on stop build not change the way top teams develop their robots?

With Stop Build, all teams are still making some progress in their own way, but it's dampened progress, slowing down the acceleration of the gap between them.

(I think our vantage points on what constitutes a "top" team makes a big difference in this discussion. If we define it as teams that qualify for World Championships, do you think they all have fully-built practice fields? )

[Cory]

I want to share what I wrote in my survey, as I feel it represents a viewpoint that is not voiced much in this thread, which may be more representative of teams that would be thrilled just to have a competitive chance of making it to the World Championships.

-snip-

"In any given FRC season, with a limited build season, even a struggling, under-resourced team can have a shot against some of the best teams. Please don't change that."

Respectfully, you're wrong. Eliminating stop build doesn't make 254 any better. It would help us spend a little less money and would make competition less stressful since we could implement upgrades at home instead of at the event... But overall it's not going to make our robots any better whatsoever.

Is it going to make the robots better for the teams that can't afford a practice robot and currently don't get to drive at all before showing up at their first event? I don't see how you could possibly argue it wouldn't.

But that's not what this thread is about (it's about the poll a middle school student could have written better), so I'll limit myself to this one response.

[Michael Corsetto]

I want to share what I wrote in my survey, as I feel it represents a viewpoint that is not voiced much in this thread, which may be more representative of teams that would be thrilled just to have a competitive chance of making it to the World Championships.

"Stop Build Day is an essential component to keeping FIRST equitable. With a longer build season, teams with many resources (money, school support, parent support) will be able to leverage those advantages to an even greater degree to the detriment of less-resourced teams' ability to be competitive and likely, less inspired. This is the same reason why we need to continue limiting the cost of the parts used on the robot.

"Additionally, coaches & volunteers that are stretched thin for those 6 weeks will feel compelled to keep up that break-neck pace for possibly double the time just to stay competitive, leading to much higher rates of burn-out. The way my team is currently structured, we would not be able to effectively compete without Stop Build Day. If FIRST is serious about reaching out to under-served communities, we will choose not to stack the deck further in favor of the privileged.

"The question is: 'Does FIRST want to be a club for the competitive elite or does FIRST want to create an equitable experience for a broad range of schools to realistically compete?' Far less than 20% of teams qualify for the Championship event each year. What can we do that will help that 20% have a high turnover rate?

"When the amount of time is limited, there is much more variance in a competition. This is why the NFL is the most equitable pro sports league in North America. Only 16 games, and single games determine elimination in the playoffs. On 'any given sunday', the worst underdog has a legitimate chance of upsetting the very best team. In any given FRC season, with a limited build season, even a struggling, under-resourced team can have a shot against some of the best teams. Please don't change that."

1678 build three robots. Removing stop build day will save us maybe 500-1000 man hours and about $6k. We will still have 16 weeks to build, program and test.

5458 and 6174 (the rookie teams 1678 started) each build one robot. Neither qualified for WCMP in 2016. Neither can do driver practice with us because their one and only robots are in arbitrary plastic bags, while we are training our drive team and programming auto modes simultaneously during the competition season. These two teams have much more to gain from eliminating stop-build day than we do.

Teams already keep a "break neck pace" all season. Maybe you just aren't aware of it?

There are a lot of reasons why many teams never qualify for WCMP, but I'd wager stop-build day widens the gap, rather than leveling the playing field.

Thanks for sharing your opinion, mine is only one more among many.

Best,

-Mike

[frcguy]

snip

+1

[Nathan Pell]

I want to share what I wrote in my survey, as I feel it represents a viewpoint that is not voiced much in this thread, which may be more representative of teams that would be thrilled just to have a competitive chance of making it to the World Championships.

"Stop Build Day is an essential component to keeping FIRST equitable. With a longer build season, teams with many resources (money, school support, parent support) will be able to leverage those advantages to an even greater degree to the detriment of less-resourced teams' ability to be competitive and likely, less inspired. This is the same reason why we need to continue limiting the cost of the parts used on the robot.


"Additionally, coaches & volunteers that are stretched thin for those 6 weeks will feel compelled to keep up that break-neck pace for possibly double the time just to stay competitive, leading to much higher rates of burn-out. The way my team is currently structured, we would not be able to effectively compete without Stop Build Day. If FIRST is serious about reaching out to under-served communities, we will choose not to stack the deck further in favor of the privileged.

"The question is: 'Does FIRST want to be a club for the competitive elite or does FIRST want to create an equitable experience for a broad range of schools to realistically compete?' Far less than 20% of teams qualify for the Championship event each year. What can we do that will help that 20% have a high turnover rate?

"When the amount of time is limited, there is much more variance in a competition. This is why the NFL is the most equitable pro sports league in North America. Only 16 games, and single games determine elimination in the playoffs. On 'any given sunday', the worst underdog has a legitimate chance of upsetting the very best team. In any given FRC season, with a limited build season, even a struggling, under-resourced team can have a shot against some of the best teams. Please don't change that."


To your first point, this has been happening for probably over a decade. The teams with 'many resources' are building two robots and attending multiple events to increase the likelihood of qualifying for world championships. Having a closed build season has not been FIRST equitable as you mentioned, and I believe removing the stop build day will have little change on how those teams operate - we would surely not build two robots and would probably enter more tournaments instead.

We lost two of our FRC mentors to our FTC program exactly for the reason you mentioned the 'break neck speed'. Spouses are now happier and they have both come back for another FTC season. Your team is already now competing with teams who don't stop building, improving, practicing, etc. We always tell our students we don't stop working on the robot until the last match on Einstein at the World Championships. Only then is it 'done'.

[Michael Corsetto]

That quote was a summary from my entire post, whose main point was how resources would need to be stretched out further with a longer build time. Teams with more resources have more of an ability to stretch them out. (Please note that money is not the only, or even most important, resource.)

I understand your point that less-resourced teams would have more ability to develop a better robot, but wouldn't the same be even truer of a well-resourced team? Or would having no restrictions on stop build not change the way top teams develop their robots?

See my post above, but to answer directly: Eliminating stop-build day would have very little effect on how we develop our robot (see Cory's explanation as well)

With Stop Build, all teams are still making some progress in their own way, but it's dampened progress, slowing down the acceleration of the gap between them.

(I think our vantage points on what constitutes a "top" team makes a big difference in this discussion. If we define it as teams that qualify for World Championships, do you think they all have fully-built practice fields? )

Many teams that qualify for WCMP do so for off-field reasons (Chairmans, IE, RAS, Waitlist), so I think you'd have to evaluate a certain sub-set of teams at WCMP to understand how stop-build day impacts "top" teams.

I think many "top" teams (district points Qualifiers or Regional Alliance Captain/1st pick winners) have either a practice bot(s), practice field, or both. That's just my guess though :o

Best,

-Mike

[JABianchi]

Respectfully, you're wrong. Eliminating stop build doesn't make 254 any better. It would help us spend a little less money and would make competition less stressful since we could implement upgrades at home instead of at the event... But overall it's not going to make our robots any better whatsoever.

Is it going to make the robots better for the teams that can't afford a practice robot and currently don't get to drive at all before showing up at their first event? I don't see how you could possibly argue it wouldn't.

But that's not what this thread is about (it's about the poll a middle school student could have written better), so I'll limit myself to this one response.


Respectfully, there are very few teams in the same league as 254! :D

I would be curious to know how far down the FRC totem pole your sentiments run true. If you represent the top 1% who make a habit of winning multiple regionals each year, does your statement about 254's lack of value from eliminating stop build hold true for the top 5%? 10%? 20%?

If we graphed (the value-added to robot performance by eliminating stop-build) vs. (some measure of competitive performance), I would assume that some parts would show a mildly rising slope while further on it may level off. Perhaps my feelings about this proposal are indicative of where my team is on that curve.

I appreciate the reply and information. Perhaps the dialogue on CD can be even more informative for FIRST than the poorly worded survey. :D

[AllenGregoryIV]

"Stop Build Day is an essential component to keeping FIRST equitable. With a longer build season, teams with many resources (money, school support, parent support) will be able to leverage those advantages to an even greater degree to the detriment of less-resourced teams' ability to be competitive and likely, less inspired. This is the same reason why we need to continue limiting the cost of the parts used on the robot.

Most of the elite and many of the mid tier teams in FRC are already building well past the end of the season. WITHHOLDING ALLOWANCE, multiple competitions, practice robots, etc Allow teams like mine to barely notice "Stop Build Day" at all. The elite teams aren't putting their tools down after build season is over they are finding ways to attend 3+ competitions before Championships and they are scrimmaging with near by teams on the other weekends with their practice robots to get even better. Any team that isn't putting in more time after build season is either choosing not to or doesn't have the resource to do it. "Stop Build Day" isn't keeping low resource teams competitive it's dramatically removing their ability to iterate and perfect their designs. It's stopping them from the awesome of experience of practicing with friends and learning from them without the pressure of a competition. It's stopping volunteers from holding pre-inspection nights leading up to events to get teams ready for inspection and allow them to fully utilize the limited practice time at events. "Stop Build Day" needs to be abolished.


"Additionally, coaches & volunteers that are stretched thin for those 6 weeks will feel compelled to keep up that break-neck pace for possibly double the time just to stay competitive, leading to much higher rates of burn-out. The way my team is currently structured, we would not be able to effectively compete without Stop Build Day. If FIRST is serious about reaching out to under-served communities, we will choose not to stack the deck further in favor of the privileged.

If you aren't compelled already to manage your time and continue improving I don't think getting rid of "Stop Build Day" is going to change that much. Teams that are trying for a world title are working at unbelievable and inspirational levels. "Stop Build Day" isn't leveling the playing field it's making the playing a mountain that only the teams that push even harder to get the resources necessary to climb are able to summit.


"The question is: 'Does FIRST want to be a club for the competitive elite or does FIRST want to create an equitable experience for a broad range of schools to realistically compete?' Far less than 20% of teams qualify for the Championship event each year. What can we do that will help that 20% have a high turnover rate?


I don't agree, lets make our district, regional, district/state Championships events even better so that teams that come away from any FRC event feel as inspired as teams that leave the championship. We shouldn't be bringing the top down to meet the bottom. Lets raise the bottom, put in safety nets if we need to for teams that fall off and find a way inspire more students at an even greater level. Making the competitive teams worse doesn't increase inspiration. We shouldn't ask anyone to slow down so that others can catch up. Lets have everyone work together to bring everyone up to top speed.


"When the amount of time is limited, there is much more variance in a competition. This is why the NFL is the most equitable pro sports league in North America. Only 16 games, and single games determine elimination in the playoffs. On 'any given sunday', the worst underdog has a legitimate chance of upsetting the very best team. In any given FRC season, with a limited build season, even a struggling, under-resourced team can have a shot against some of the best teams. Please don't change that."

The problem with that statement is that it's not true. Sure the underdog always has a chance but they do in any sport. Someone can get injured, or a robot can break at just the wrong time for that alliance. Every team has a chance the problem right now is the lowest resource teams have even less of a chance against the elite then they ever have. At one point there was only a championship and everyone largely had the same amount of time to build, then their were a few regionals around the country but going to multiple was rare, now if you have the money you could attend 4-7 events before Championships and there is more than enough data that proves as you go to more events and iterate your robot, train your drivers and improve your strategy you're likely to increase your performance. Going to more events, building practice bots, and iterating with the withholding allowance currently takes a lot of resources. Abolishing "Stop Build Day" would allow more teams to use the time that many teams are already using, if they wanted to.

#BanTheBag

[Nathan Pell]

I couldn't agree more, and I love your hashtag!!

[cadandcookies]

Fun fact, the FTC rule was written way back in the day when it was still FVC (FIRST VEX Challenge). That same rule was used in the new VRC for a few years, however we adopted the subsystem breakdown in response to teams trying to find ways around the rule and switch between robots during a tournament. As always, a simple rule became more complicated and bulletproof in an effort to stop some edge cases.

Really interesting. I can't say I'm surprised given the history of the programs, but it's nice to hear some of the actual history.

All those darn edge cases, man...

[Oblarg]

All the questions except for the last one are pretty bad, but the last one is rather important, I think, so claims that there won't be anything useful from this seem to me a bit overblown.

[Rangel(kf7fdb)]

Respectfully, there are very few teams in the same league as 254! :D

I would be curious to know how far down the FRC totem pole your sentiments run true. If you represent the top 1% who make a habit of winning multiple regionals each year, does your statement about 254's lack of value from eliminating stop build hold true for the top 5%? 10%? 20%?

If we graphed (the value-added to robot performance by eliminating stop-build) vs. (some measure of competitive performance), I would assume that some parts would show a mildly rising slope while further on it may level off. Perhaps my feelings about this proposal are indicative of where my team is on that curve.

I appreciate the reply and information. Perhaps the dialogue on CD can be even more informative for FIRST than the poorly worded survey. :D

I did a poll in an Arizona FRC group on Facebook during the season asking which teams had a practice bot. 13 of the 50 Arizona teams confirmed that they do in fact build a practice bot. That is just of those that responded too. I'm relatively sure there are others too but can't confirm for sure. Even with 13 though, 25% of Arizona teams have a huge competitive edge over the other 75%. Now none of the Arizona FRC teams are a 254 and I'd imagine removing build day would be a big help even to the teams that build practice robots here. However, I personally think it would be an even bigger help to those that don't have the resources to build one.
-----
Another point I'd like to make is that bag day removal would help balance the scales for regional vs district teams. I know the goal is to make every region a district but that isn't going to happen anytime soon for a lot of places including the south west. District teams get more hands on time with the competition robot from more matches per event and two of them, two 6 hour open bag periods in their shop, and if they do well, a state championship. Overall they get way more practice and development with the competition bot than a regional team even if the regional team also builds a practice bot. Giving all teams equal access to the competition robot would be a way to make things more fair between a district and regional team. This I feel is especially important when it comes to the two championships where North got almost all the districts and South got mostly regional teams. Who knows, maybe removing bag day would even make South champs a much stronger event than what it is predicted to be, especially for low to mid tier teams.

[Caleb Sykes]

When the amount of time is limited, there is much more variance in a competition.

While I agree that greater time periods tend to minimize variance, your next statement really doesn't seem to hold water.


This is why the NFL is the most equitable pro sports league in North America.

Here was an article I found which pretty decisively shows that MLB has far more variance than the NFL:
http://harvardsportsanalysis.org/2013/09/undeserving-champions-examining-variance-in-the-postseason/




I'm not sure about this claim though:
In any given FRC season, with a limited build season, even a struggling, under-resourced team can have a shot against some of the best teams. Please don't change that."

I guess I would have to better understand how you define "a shot against" to assess the validity of this statement. If you mean captaining the winning Einstein alliance, you are probably incorrect. If you mean captaining a regional winning alliance, you are also probably incorrect. If you mean any given qualification match, where the under-resourced team happened to get decent-ish partners and the "better team" has below-average partners, you are probably correct.

I can crunch some numbers for you if you want to make a more quantifiable hypothesis.

[Ed Law]

I would be curious to know how far down the FRC totem pole your sentiments run true. If you represent the top 1% who make a habit of winning multiple regionals each year, does your statement about 254's lack of value from eliminating stop build hold true for the top 5%? 10%? 20%?

If we graphed (the value-added to robot performance by eliminating stop-build) vs. (some measure of competitive performance), I would assume that some parts would show a mildly rising slope while further on it may level off. Perhaps my feelings about this proposal are indicative of where my team is on that curve.
:D
Just to give you another data point. I would consider my former team to be in the top 10-15% in the last 5 years. We build two robots. We have a partial test/practice field and access to full field from our friends. Eliminating stop build day will also not help us get any better. We are already getting the best robot we are capable of to our events. We already worked as many hours as we are capable of putting in. Without stop build day, we will save money, meet less often during the 6 weeks which is good for students and mentors and a lot less stressful. We will be able to spend more time helping other teams to get their robot working to their fullest potential. Right now we help other teams but we have to worry about getting our competition robot finish and into a bag. After that we can't help other less resourceful teams because their robot was already in a bag. I hope you see my point.

[AllenGregoryIV]

A good exercise that may be worth pursuing: here (http://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/frc/blog/where-is-first-going) is the blog detailing the strategic pillars for FIRST. How does the removal or maintaining of bag day stand on these pillars, and how does it falter on them?

That's a very good idea.

How Does Abolishing "Stop Build Day" Fit FIRST's Strategic Pillars (http://goo.gl/Zms1ce)

Expand Access and Participation, Broad and Deep:

A Short build season is one of the hardest parts about FRC for new teams. More time allows for more time to get help and work with veteran teams. Abolishing “Stop Build Day” makes FRC less scary for new teams.
More out of bag time allows for more demonstrations and scrimmage events during the season.
Level the field for international teams: Teams outside of North America have a very hard time competing at multiple events. By abolishing “Stop Build Day” new areas with very opportunities for events could hold smaller unofficial scrimmages and gain experience during the season.


Increase Diversity:

In conjunction with expanding access to new areas around the world we will dramatically add to our cultural diversity of the program.
By abolishing “Stop Build Day” we are able to dramatically reduce the cost of fielding a competitive team making it less expensive for global expansion and deep expansion to schools and areas that cannot currently afford an FRC team.


Scale Efficiently:
- The elite teams in FRC are amazing.
- New teams need every advantage they can get and one of the biggest is how open and caring FRC teams are towards new teams. By abolishing “Stop Build Day”:

Veteran mentors could help more young teams since losing a day of build is less important when there are more of them.
Young teams have more time to learn, compete, and be inspired by veteran teams during the season.
Local scrimmages and practice sessions could reduce the need for dramatic increases in events to meet team demand as more and more teams wish to compete more often.
More time to fix the problems introduced by inexperienced teams. Pre-inspection events can be held prior to an event that allow young teams to get ready for their first inspection and not waste precious practice time


Ensure Sustainability:
Spending countless resources traveling to multiple events, building multiple robots and spare parts for them is not a sustainable solution.
- Abolish “Stop Build Day” and

Teams can spend more of their money on growing their STEM program to reach more students.
Have more time to support and elevate young and rookie teams.
Hold demonstrations and workshops to increase team growth in their areas.
Hold in season scrimmages that let teams compete more often for less cost to the program.


Achieve Broad Recognition:
The best way I can think of to achieve broad recognition is to increase the level of play on the field. Spectators don’t want to watch robots that are inoperable, uncontrollable, and aren’t meeting game objectives.
- By abolishing “Stop Build Day” we can

Increase the level of play on the field.
Reduce the number of robots that are inoperable during a match.
Give teams more time with their robot to iterate and improve when there are errors.
Give teams more time to work on programming and increase the challenge that the majority teams can meet.
Put on a better show!


#BanTheBag

[EricH]

Proposal: instead of eliminating Stop Build Day, restrict what can be brought in to the event. 5 lb of upgrade parts, unlimited raw material* including COTS, everything else must be exact spare parts to something on the robot.

Won't stop driver practice and development of stuff, but it'll sure make the stuff developed simpler...


BTW, this post mostly in jest, as I've seen what happens when moving from this sort of system to the current system. I think the competitiveness has gone up across the board. On the other hand, the "push harder longer in the shop" has also gone up, and the usage of the 30-lb allowance has skyrocketed by weight to, well, 29.9 lb for a lot of mid-level teams.

So, if I may summarize: The introduction of a significant "withholding" which could be used for upgrades increased the competitiveness of the average team, if they took advantage of it, while increasing the amount of time spent after the build season spent on improving the robots. I could see elimination of the stop-build having the exact same effect as the increase of "withholding", and I could see it easing the burnout. Either way, effect unknown.

*Can be trimmed for handling purposes but not to final size/shape

[WinterPoet]

I personally find myself somewhat in the middle. I agree, especially coming from a team that only builds one bot (and sometimes barely that), that Stop Build Day is a big obstacle for weaker teams. It means we get little practice, and can only watch as the FRC elites practice strategy and test designs using practice bots.

HOWEVER, I do appreciate some of the sentiment behind Stop Build Day. It correctly shows the deadlines that exist in the "real world". I also find it inspires my team to work harder and think faster, as the pressure often creates positive stress that pushes us to do our best. Still, the tight schedule makes it hard for students with literally any other interests to have time for those things, or even grades. And the time is so short, sometimes it leads to burn-outs instead of a competitive environment.

In general, I lean towards a compromise of sorts. A build week of 8-10 weeks gives teams way more time than we've had in the past. It also serves as a stepping stone, if need be. If it's an overwhelming success, FIRST can go from there and consider nixing Stop Build Day. All in all, I feel it's the best solution, and leaves room for additional adjustments in the future.

[AllenGregoryIV]

HOWEVER, I do appreciate some of the sentiment behind Stop Build Day. It correctly shows the deadlines that exist in the "real world". I also find it inspires my team to work harder and think faster, as the pressure often creates positive stress that pushes us to do our best.

Very few projects I've worked on in the real world require things to be hands off for months at a time before being used immediately ready to go after coming out of shipping. There will always be a deadline in FRC. The start of your next match! No other machine sport has this deadline. If hands off time and deadlines are some sort of special sauce why haven't they trickled down to FTC or FLL? FRC is the only one to get this special thing, why? Shouldn't NASCAR try to adopt it if it makes things so much better?


In general, I lean towards a compromise of sorts. A build week of 8-10 weeks gives teams way more time than we've had in the past. It also serves as a stepping stone, if need be. If it's an overwhelming success, FIRST can go from there and consider nixing Stop Build Day. All in all, I feel it's the best solution, and leaves room for additional adjustments in the future.

How would this work? Are you proposing pushing back the start of competitions or moving forward kickoff? Are we stopping build between Week 3 and 4 of competition season?

[JB987]

Respectfully, you're wrong. Eliminating stop build doesn't make 254 any better. It would help us spend a little less money and would make competition less stressful since we could implement upgrades at home instead of at the event... But overall it's not going to make our robots any better whatsoever.

Is it going to make the robots better for the teams that can't afford a practice robot and currently don't get to drive at all before showing up at their first event? I don't see how you could possibly argue it wouldn't.

But that's not what this thread is about (it's about the poll a middle school student could have written better), so I'll limit myself to this one response.

+1

[waialua359]

I want to share what I wrote in my survey, as I feel it represents a viewpoint that is not voiced much in this thread, which may be more representative of teams that would be thrilled just to have a competitive chance of making it to the World Championships.

"Stop Build Day is an essential component to keeping FIRST equitable. With a longer build season, teams with many resources (money, school support, parent support) will be able to leverage those advantages to an even greater degree to the detriment of less-resourced teams' ability to be competitive and likely, less inspired. This is the same reason why we need to continue limiting the cost of the parts used on the robot.

"Additionally, coaches & volunteers that are stretched thin for those 6 weeks will feel compelled to keep up that break-neck pace for possibly double the time just to stay competitive, leading to much higher rates of burn-out. The way my team is currently structured, we would not be able to effectively compete without Stop Build Day. If FIRST is serious about reaching out to under-served communities, we will choose not to stack the deck further in favor of the privileged.

"The question is: 'Does FIRST want to be a club for the competitive elite or does FIRST want to create an equitable experience for a broad range of schools to realistically compete?' Far less than 20% of teams qualify for the Championship event each year. What can we do that will help that 20% have a high turnover rate?

"When the amount of time is limited, there is much more variance in a competition. This is why the NFL is the most equitable pro sports league in North America. Only 16 games, and single games determine elimination in the playoffs. On 'any given sunday', the worst underdog has a legitimate chance of upsetting the very best team. In any given FRC season, with a limited build season, even a struggling, under-resourced team can have a shot against some of the best teams. Please don't change that."
JABianchi,
thanks for sharing your post. While it may be a minority viewpoint here on CD, I find some similar valid thoughts and concerns while highlighting some things I wanted to respond to.
Being from Hawaii, this is a disadvantage for obvious reasons. We spend a considerable amount of time traveling, making up schoolwork, and competing, that there would be little to no time to iterate or practice driving at all. Flying a robot to each and every event is a great disadvantage vs. driving your robot to an event. By trying to get the same experience as a district team, we also end up spending a lot more money competing in 3 regional events plus the Championships (and off-season events). Even in Hawaii, we have to spend money to stay in Waikiki because the travel time during work days can be as long as 2 hours one way from Waialua to the event.
As an above average resource team, being from Hawaii limits our ability to take advantage of that, regardless of whether Stop Build Day continued or ended.
My main concern in mentor burnout. I dont need data or any more experience to understand that getting rid of a Stop Build Day will put pressure on our team, both students and mentors, to work a longer period of time at an intense level with what little time we would have left.
If the majority of people want to get rid of Stop Build Day, I can accept it and adjust, or decide to quit FRC. I believe that majority rules. We had to build and adjust our program over the years to try and stay competitive. The possiblity of getting rid of the 6 weeks of build season is no different.

And IMO, using VEX is a poor example of why we should get rid of the 6 week build season! Building a completely different VEX robot between events is NOT the same as bringing a somewhat different iterated FRC robot to your next event. Not even close! We spend a lot of time doing both.

[Michael Corsetto]

JABianchi,
thanks for sharing your post. While it may be a minority viewpoint here on CD, I find some similar valid thoughts and concerns while highlighting some things I wanted to respond to.
Being from Hawaii, this is a disadvantage for obvious reasons. We spend a considerable amount of time traveling, making up schoolwork, and competing, that there would be little to no time to iterate or practice driving at all. Flying a robot to each and every event is a great disadvantage vs. driving your robot to an event. By trying to get the same experience as a district team, we also end up spending a lot more money competing in 3 regional events plus the Championships (and off-season events). Even in Hawaii, we have to spend money to stay in Waikiki because the travel time during work days can be as long as 2 hours one way from Waialua to the event.
As an above average resource team, being from Hawaii limits our ability to take advantage of that, regardless of whether Stop Build Day continued or ended.
My main concern in mentor burnout. I dont need data or any more experience to understand that getting rid of a Stop Build Day will put pressure on our team, both students and mentors, to work a longer period of time at an intense level with what little time we would have left.
If the majority of people want to get rid of Stop Build Day, I can accept it and adjust, or decide to quit FRC. I believe that majority rules. We had to build and adjust our program over the years to try and stay competitive. The possiblity of getting rid of the 6 weeks of build season is no different.

And IMO, using VEX is a poor example of why we should get rid of the 6 week build season! Building a completely different VEX robot between events is NOT the same as bringing a somewhat different iterated FRC robot to your next event. Not even close! We spend a lot of time doing both.

Glenn,

Really great feedback. Hawaii teams definitely are in a unique situation.

One quick thought. If there was no bag, could you design your robot to disassemble into three or four major pieces and take it on the plane with you? This could significantly reduce the amount of time 359 is without their robot. You could re-assemble at your hotel or a host team's shop once you arrive.

I mention this since 125 took their robot in a check-in bag to Arizona in 2016. It was pretty small, even in the bag. Being out of the bag would give you a lot of flexibility to break your robot apart strategically and fit it in a few check-in bags.

Not an ideal solution, but could be workable.

-Mike

[Sperkowsky]

Frank said a while back on a FUN episode iirc that Bag and Tag would be staying so I do find this poll kinda interesting.

Bag and Tag is something that I do want to see go away mainly because many teams including mine can not afford a second robot. This puts us at a pretty distinct disadvantage through the season and especially by champs.

For teams like mine the bag does actually mean a ton less work because we can only work on withholding but for teams with practice robots the season really does not ramp down. So, in that sense the mentor/student burnout argument is kinda invalidated.

I think removing bag and tag will help in a few ways. First middle of the road teams can now compete with the top level teams a little closer. Second the lower level teams can be helped by the top and mid level teams a little more comfortably as everyone now has more time to work. Overall removing bag and tag to me will bring up the bottom and middle tiers of FIRST attempting slightly to close the performance gap.

F4 did its 1st episode (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41J-ZPWeQjE) on Bag and Tag and I recommend everyone check it out. Its a little rough since it was the first episode ever but some good opinions and ideas were presented.

[DaveL]

+1 to Allen and Mike's comments about leveling the playing field by reducing the need to build a 2nd bot and one robot teams getting more practice time.

The main advantage I see for unlimited robot access, is to educate students that the design process involves continuous improvement. This is something that is currently missing from our program.

To FIRST:
Give it a try. Get feedback.
If it doesn't work out, do something different the year after.

[martin417]

I am still not sure what the first bunch of questions meant. It looks like the only thing that everyone agrees on is that the survey was very poorly written (intentionally or not).

A couple of points that no one has made about stop build day and "fairness".

1) Not all teams get the same build time with a stop build day.I know that with the team I have mentored the most during the last ten years, the school has been our biggest enemy. Many times we were not allowed to work due to school holidays, lack of teacher support, etc. Eliminating stop build day would allow more time to work, and less stress on mentors.
2) Not all teams abide by stop build day.
The dirty little secret that no-one wants to bring up. I know for a fact that some teams ignore stop build day (one such team was on the winning alliance at at least one event). Don't flame me for bringing it up, I know that it happens. This causes a disadvantage to teams that comply with the rules

[MechEng83]

To address the original post:

Survey poorly written - yep.
FIRST will make whatever conclusion they want from the data - maybe.

Now, my color commentary: I think a lot of newer folks don't realize the bag and tag is a vestige of the time where we all had to crate up our robots on what used to be termed "Ship Day" and they would sit in some drayage location until whatever competition was next. This was a practice that came about to ensure fairness among teams that might be 5 miles or 500 miles from their competition. With the increasing amount of teams, FIRST decided to test out bag-and-tag and put the onus on teams to get their robot to competitions rather than leaning on FedEx to donate even more free shipping (except for championship, and all the other exceptions listed in the administrative manual). Without crates, bags were put in place to simulate the same locking up.

Some more resource-laden teams figured out that with the robot shipped off, it'd be good to have a 2nd robot to use for testing, practice, and upgrades. Other teams caught on, and then there was the "arms" race.

That being said, I've talked with newer teams that only build one robot, and they are motivated to build a 2nd robot because "all the good teams do that" and they recognize the advantage of still being able to do development after the first robot is made inaccessible.

Is it good that younger teams are striving to be like more established teams by developing business plans to achieve those goals of obtaining more resources? Yes. Could the efforts and resources be better spent not building a 2nd robot? Possibly.

It's a very complex issue, but I did find Cory's post about how bag and tag doesn't really affect how they go about designing/testing very interesting. To his team, bag and tag is a speed bump, not a wall like it is for other teams.

[Michael Corsetto]

[/INDENT]2) Not all teams abide by stop build day.
The dirty little secret that no-one wants to bring up. I know for a fact that some teams ignore stop build day (one such team was on the winning alliance at at least one event). Don't flame me for bringing it up, I know that it happens. This causes a disadvantage to teams that comply with the rules


:(

This makes me sad. I can't think of a worse example to set for student than this.

Never heard of it happening before, besides on complete accident (rookie team that doesn't know to bag, etc.)

-Mike

[Andrew Schreiber]

Glenn,

Really great feedback. Hawaii teams definitely are in a unique situation.

One quick thought. If there was no bag, could you design your robot to disassemble into three or four major pieces and take it on the plane with you? This could significantly reduce the amount of time 359 is without their robot. You could re-assemble at your hotel or a host team's shop once you arrive.

I mention this since 125 took their robot in a check-in bag to Arizona in 2016. It was pretty small, even in the bag. Being out of the bag would give you a lot of flexibility to break your robot apart strategically and fit it in a few check-in bags.

Not an ideal solution, but could be workable.

-Mike


For reference - 125's robot was packed into 2 checked bags. The arm/shooter mechanism and the chassis were rather simple to separate (in fact, the arm was light enough to withhold entirely). From my understanding this worked pretty well. A note was left in the Pelican case with each component to prevent the TSA from opening the bag itself. This worked fairly well.

125 also shipped tools. These were done in KoP totes instead of Pelican cases, unfortunately the airlines left the tool totes on the tarmac during a rain storm leading to about 2" of standing water in them. If bringing things by air please consider putting anything that would be negatively impacted by being submerged in water for a long time in a bag.

[Jay O'Donnell]

If bringing things by air please consider putting anything that would be negatively impacted by being submerged in water for a long time in a bag.

How ironic.

[The_ShamWOW88]

Most of the elite and many of the mid tier teams in FRC are already building well past the end of the season. WITHHOLDING ALLOWANCE, multiple competitions, practice robots, etc Allow teams like mine to barely notice "Stop Build Day" at all. The elite teams aren't putting their tools down after build season is over they are finding ways to attend 3+ competitions before Championships and they are scrimmaging with near by teams on the other weekends with their practice robots to get even better. Any team that isn't putting in more time after build season is either choosing not to or doesn't have the resource to do it. "Stop Build Day" isn't keeping low resource teams competitive it's dramatically removing their ability to iterate and perfect their designs. It's stopping them from the awesome of experience of practicing with friends and learning from them without the pressure of a competition. It's stopping volunteers from holding pre-inspection nights leading up to events to get teams ready for inspection and allow them to fully utilize the limited practice time at events. "Stop Build Day" needs to be abolished.



+1

[FrankJ]

I am sort of on the fence about bag and tag. I like the hard stop. It is more of a transition for us since we continue to work with the practice robot. We focus more on driver development and robot refinement after stop build. On the other hand stop build has a lot of baggage that already been discussed on this thread. It is probably time to change it.

One of the thus far unstated advantages that will benefit the high resource teams is they will be showing up to each event with an essentially completely rebuilt robot rather than having to do maintenance at the event. Granted other teams will have the same opportunity.

For no bag day to really benefit mid level teams, they are going to need the discipline to finish the robot around the six week mark to give them time to iterate and practice. I leave the top tier teams out of this because they already have the discipline.

Teams have to decide how much resources to put to the robot competition. Not having bag day really doesn't change this.

[Ernst]

And IMO, using VEX is a poor example of why we should get rid of the 6 week build season! Building a completely different VEX robot between events is NOT the same as bringing a somewhat different iterated FRC robot to your next event. Not even close! We spend a lot of time doing both.

This is a point I'm really stuck on. I hate the design convergence in VEX. I hate that teams, if they're driven enough, can completely scrap their robot between events and copy the most successful design they've found online. My VexU team is about to start our 2nd 9-week Release schedule for a Fall Scrimmage. We'll have another one before our Spring Qualifier. And another one before Champs. We'll have completed 4 separate build seasons. In the process we'll probably lose half of our active members again.

Obviously FRC is more complicated and it would be a lot harder to pull off copying a Week 1 robot that you see for your Week 6 or 7 event. Design convergence with some subsytems definitely currently happens by the end of the season, but those are mostly add-on subsystems, not a defining part of the robot.

[Michael Corsetto]

This is a point I'm really stuck on. I hate the design convergence in VEX. I hate that teams, if they're driven enough, can completely scrap their robot between events and copy the most successful design they've found online. My VexU team is about to start our 2nd 9-week Release schedule for a Fall Scrimmage. We'll have another one before our Spring Qualifier. And another one before Champs. We'll have completed 4 separate build seasons. In the process we'll probably lose half of our active members again.

Obviously FRC is more complicated and it would be a lot harder to pull off copying a Week 1 robot that you see for your Week 6 or 7 event. Design convergence with some subsytems definitely currently happens by the end of the season, but those are mostly add-on subsystems, not a defining part of the robot.

You must really have hated 973's 2015 and 2016 robots...

What you wrote already happens. 1678 in 2013 is another example.

-Mike

Edit: I suppose my point hinges on how you specify a "defining part of the robot"

[marshall]

You must really have hated 973's 2015 and 2016 robots...

What you wrote already happens. 1678 in 2013 is another example.

-Mike

Edit: I suppose my point hinges on how you specify a "defining part of the robot"

But design convergence doesn't happen in the real world!

Except for cell phones, computers, chip manufacturing, cars, shoes.... Kicked the ball in my own goal again!

[bobbysq]

It is worth pointing out that off-season events show that robot diversity is still maintained even when there is less of a time limit. We don't walk into CowTown and see a bunch of 254 and 118 clones every year. I think teams would still rather put out their own work, even if it's not necessarily the winning option.

[Jay O'Donnell]

It is worth pointing out that off-season events show that robot diversity is still maintained even when there is less of a time limit. We don't walk into CowTown and see a bunch of 254 and 118 clones every year. I think teams would still rather put out their own work, even if it's not necessarily the winning option.

That's probably because teams don't want to spend a lot of money and time on a robot for the offseason. It might be a little bit different with a championship on the line.

That being said there's already a bit of design convergence with withholding allowance. See canburgulars last year.

[Deke]

One thing I haven't seen mentioned was stress on machining sponsors. Eliminating bag and tag would reduce stress on machine sponsors as well.

The team I helped with had access to manual mills and lathes and made 90-95% of the custom components needed, but some complicated parts would get cnced, laser cut/water jetted at a sponsors shop. They were willing to set aside profitable work to give us fast turn around times. Most shops in the area would give 2-4 week lead times for normal quoted work. Giving a longer time table for the sponsors to finish parts during machine down time would save them money as well. We all know how critical sponsors are to the success of FIRST, giving them some more time can only help them.

[Ty Tremblay]

This is a point I'm really stuck on. I hate the design convergence in VEX. I hate that teams, if they're driven enough, can completely scrap their robot between events and copy the most successful design they've found online. My VexU team is about to start our 2nd 9-week Release schedule for a Fall Scrimmage. We'll have another one before our Spring Qualifier. And another one before Champs. We'll have completed 4 separate build seasons. In the process we'll probably lose half of our active members again.

Obviously FRC is more complicated and it would be a lot harder to pull off copying a Week 1 robot that you see for your Week 6 or 7 event. Design convergence with some subsytems definitely currently happens by the end of the season, but those are mostly add-on subsystems, not a defining part of the robot.

Sometimes I get caught on this too, but as Dean has said time and time again, FIRST is about more than the competition. I would much rather see my students get inspired by a successful design, figure out why it works, make their own, and have it be successful at the next competition, than to have kids leave a competition saying "man, I wish we thought of that." While its true that the above can be accomplished within the confines of Stop Build Day, SBD makes this much harder.

I don't mentor in FRC solely to win competitions (319 didn't do that until 2016). I mentor in FRC because it inspired me to make a career out of robots. There's no denying that a robot that works is more inspiring to the students that built it than a robot that doesn't work. Removing bag day makes inspiration easier to achieve and I'm all for it.

[Chris is me]

FIRST design convergence will never, ever, in any circumstance, exist to the same extent that it does in VEX, for a few reasons:

Vex uses standard hardware all around, making robots look similar and facilitating bolt for bolt copies.
The Vex season is almost year round, allowing more time for copies and iteration.
It takes far less time and far fewer resources to build a Vex robot than it does to build an FRC robot
While Vex allows for some design flexibility, the COTS centric nature limits the number of highly successful and visible design variations to copy. Meanwhile, if you asked FRC teams everywhere which robot they should copy, I think you would get a lot of different answers.


This isn't to say design convergence isn't a cause for concern or anything, just that everyone's "nightmare scenario" of completely identical robots just won't happen. If it would happen, then we would see hundreds of Ri3D clones, right? Even in the peak year for clones, at worst we would see teams copy the concept with their own spin on it for the most part, with just a few bolt for bolt copies.

---

The other criticism of ending stop build I want to address is deadlines. Some have argued a hard deadline is good practice for the real world, so we need bag day to simulate that. The main problem with this logic is that, it's just completely backwards. Bag day is a soft deadline! You get to keep working on the withholding allowance. Even with no withholding, you get to use a practice robot, and plan for COTS upgrades at competition. A deadline of the actual competition day with a no-bag system would be an Actual Hard Deadline. Similarly, having everyone stop at the same time would also still happen at competitions. Everyone at the competition would have just as much time to work on the robots as everyone else at the competition!

---

I do recognize there are plenty of arguments to keep the bag, and I don't think they are all invalid. But I think once we get over our fear of change, it would do more good than harm to get rid of it. I'll post more thoughts at a later time.

[cbale2000]

For now, I think removing stop build day will give too much of an advantage to district teams, who will be able to see how they perform before iterating it more and more, as compared to 1-regional teams who only get to play one event and can't really improve more. Because of this, removing stop build day will favor district teams even more when Champs rolls around.

Perhaps the result of this would be seeing the expansion of unofficial scrimmage events into the competition season? If you want more time to practice and iterate, there would be nothing stopping you from getting a few local teams together to practice like teams already do in Week 0 events, but in the middle of the season.

Plus, a lot of iteration can be done just by observing other events through livestreams. Not an ideal solution, but I still think having equal (unlimited) access time is a FAR better equalizer, even for teams that do only get one event.

[Jon Stratis]

The other criticism of ending stop build I want to address is deadlines. Some have argued a hard deadline is good practice for the real world, so we need bag day to simulate that. The main problem with this logic is that, it's just completely backwards. Bag day is a soft deadline! You get to keep working on the withholding allowance. Even with no withholding, you get to use a practice robot, and plan for COTS upgrades at competition. A deadline of the actual competition day with a no-bag system would be an Actual Hard Deadline. Similarly, having everyone stop at the same time would also still happen at competitions. Everyone at the competition would have just as much time to work on the robots as everyone else at the competition!


My experience doing software design has mostly been along these soft-deadlines you mention. I worked for a medical device company for a long time. We would have a hard deadline for the *.0 releases, and have to get everything finished for them so we could send them to testing and then to the FDA on time. But once they were sent off to testing, we immediately started working on the *.1 release, fixing everything that was wrong (ie identified in testing) with the *.0 release. And ultimately, the users never saw the *.0 release, we were able to go straight to the field with the *.1 release instead.

You see this all the time with major software releases. Just look at the iPhone - version 9.0 came out Sept 16 last year, followed quickly by 9.0.1 a week later, and 9.0.2 a week after that.

So the way FIRST currently runs does align with some of what we see in the real world. It may not be applicable to every job or industry, but it is still applicable to some.

[MoistRobot]

I think getting rid of stop build day will be for the best. Teams can still set whatever build schedule works best for them and, as many have iterated, lower resource teams can practice/refine their robot up until competition time without the benefit of a practice robot.

[FrankJ]

I guess we need to look at why stop build day exists in the first place. Is it to limit resources (time) to balance the playing field? Hasn't worked. Is it intended to add an artificial dead line to increase the challenge? Hasn't worked. So it seems you either need to add rules to make stop build day more than a date on the calendar or get rid of it. Or recognize that within FRC there are teams competing at different levels. The driven teams are always put more energy into the game than less driven teams. Maybe their top level goals are different as well.

[notmattlythgoe]

:(

This makes me sad. I can't think of a worse example to set for student than this.

Never heard of it happening before, besides on complete accident (rookie team that doesn't know to bag, etc.)

-Mike

Completely agree. This is like a coach cheating in little league baseball, what kind of example does that set?

People make me sad.
https://media.tenor.co/images/19614d9fb16860e59744eb80e91cfcb6/raw

[efoote868]

I might be in the CD minority, but I appreciate stop build day. It's easier to tell members that "we expect you to participate during the 6 weeks we have to build the robot for competition" rather than "you have to participate all the way up to the first competition, and then maybe the second competition, and then maybe more until championship" etc.

Same thing for mentors, and other volunteers. It doesn't make a difference for the hard core enthusiasts, but it definitely makes it easier for the casual participant (the people not on CD in the off-season :P) which is the majority of the FIRST population.

[notmattlythgoe]

I might be in the CD minority, but I appreciate stop build day. It's easier to tell members that "we expect you to participate during the 6 weeks we have to build the robot for competition" rather than "you have to participate all the way up to the first competition, and then maybe the second competition, and then maybe more until championship" etc.

Same thing for mentors, and other volunteers. It doesn't make a difference for the hard core enthusiasts, but it definitely makes it easier for the casual participant (the people not on CD in the off-season :P) which is the majority of the FIRST population.

I think that is what causes a lot of the divide on this subject. Some teams work for 6 weeks then stop. We tell our students they are expected to work until the end of the season. Our season ends when we have not qualified to compete in any more competitions.

[AdamHeard]

I think that is what causes a lot of the divide on this subject. Some teams work for 6 weeks then stop. We tell our students they are expected to work until the end of the season. Our season ends when we have not qualified to compete in any more competitions.

Same.

I believe some of the best parts of season are when we travel to practice with other teams during the regional season. It's a lot of fun, and the teams get a lot out of it.

Unfortunately only high resource teams can currently afford this advantage.

[efoote868]

I think that is what causes a lot of the divide on this subject. Some teams work for 6 weeks then stop. We tell our students they are expected to work until the end of the season. Our season ends when we have not qualified to compete in any more competitions.

From experience in the past, there are quite a few students involved in my team that simply would not join if they were told it was a full time 12 week commitment instead of 6, even if the last 6 weeks was not really full time and at a reduced load.

But once you get them hooked, they're in for the full build season and full competition season, and off season and they re-prioritize their schedules around FIRST.


If FIRST kept the same "6 week build season" but relaxed requirements about what can and can't happen during off weeks during the competition season, I'd be perfectly fine with that.

[Brian Selle]

Survey was super confusing. I read and re-read every question, still not sure what they were asking. My random stop build points:

1) Removing the stop build day does not remove the deadline. Your first competition is your deadline. I would argue that removing stop build day is more "real world" than the stop build loophole. Car racing, sports, design competitions - everyone prepares right up to the start of the competition.

2) When I first started mentoring for FRC and heard that others build practice robots to get around the stop build day, it didn't feel right. Either you say stop and mean stop or don't do it at all.

3) I believe the mythical "6-week build" concept is mostly about a catchy marketing phrase. It rolls off the tongue and sounds great in the elevator. Then after you've set the hook, you explain the concept of building a second robot so that you can continue practicing, their accepting smile becomes a "what"?

4) For those teams/mentors that want to stop after 6 weeks that's still an option without an official stop build day. At least you won't be lulled into thinking that other teams are really stopping work after stop build day.

5) Several years ago when we only had a few kids and a couple mentors, I remember everyone working flat out until bag day to finish the competition robot. The kids and mentors were all exhausted. We didn't have the bandwidth to build 2 robots simultaneously. We'd take a couple days off then peel ourselves off the floor and have to start building the practice robot. It certainly paid off, but felt so unnecessary. I would have much rather continued working and practicing on the competition robot.

6) Competitions would soooo much less stressful. Teams would be able to help other teams more. We would actually have time to walk around and see other teams and the exhibits. I think the level of performance of all teams would increase. How many times have you said or heard, "it worked perfectly on our practice robot"?

[notmattlythgoe]

From experience in the past, there are quite a few students involved in my team that simply would not join if they were told it was a full time 12 week commitment instead of 6, even if the last 6 weeks was not really full time and at a reduced load.

But once you get them hooked, they're in for the full build season and full competition season, and off season and they re-prioritize their schedules around FIRST.


If FIRST kept the same "6 week build season" but relaxed requirements about what can and can't happen during off weeks during the competition season, I'd be perfectly fine with that.

Why does FIRST need to do this? Why can't you just do it on your team?


6) Competitions would soooo much less stressful. Teams would be able to help other teams more. We would actually have time to walk around and see other teams and the exhibits. I think the level of performance of all teams would increase. How many times have you said or heard, "it worked perfectly on our practice robot"?

And think of how many more robots would show up and be able to do something instead sit there in the middle of the field the entire match (of course we would still have some that do that anyway).

[Nate Laverdure]

From experience in the past, there are quite a few students involved in my team that simply would not join if they were told it was a full time 12 week commitment instead of 6, even if the last 6 weeks was not really full time and at a reduced load.

But once you get them hooked, they're in for the full build season and full competition season, and off season and they re-prioritize their schedules around FIRST.
This post is advocating lying to students and parents.

[cbale2000]

Survey was super confusing. I read and re-read every question, still not sure what they were asking. My random stop build points:

1) Removing the stop build day does not remove the deadline. Your first competition is your deadline. I would argue that removing stop build day is more "real world" than the stop build loophole. Car racing, sports, design competitions - everyone prepares right up to the start of the competition.

2) When I first started mentoring for FRC and heard that others build practice robots to get around the stop build day, it didn't feel right. Either you say stop and mean stop or don't do it at all.

3) I believe the mythical "6-week build" concept is mostly about a catchy marketing phrase. It rolls off the tongue and sounds great in the elevator. Then after you've set the hook, you explain the concept of building a second robot so that you can continue practicing, their accepting smile becomes a "what"?

4) For those teams/mentors that want to stop after 6 weeks that's still an option without an official stop build day. At least you won't be lulled into thinking that other teams are really stopping work after stop build day.

5) Several years ago when we only had a few kids and a couple mentors, I remember everyone working flat out until bag day to finish the competition robot. The kids and mentors were all exhausted. We didn't have the bandwidth to build 2 robots simultaneously. We'd take a couple days off then peel ourselves off the floor and have to start building the practice robot. It certainly paid off, but felt so unnecessary. I would have much rather continued working and practicing on the competition robot.

6) Competitions would soooo much less stressful. Teams would be able to help other teams more. We would actually have time to walk around and see other teams and the exhibits. I think the level of performance of all teams would increase. How many times have you said or heard, "it worked perfectly on our practice robot"?

I was going to post a long write-up of my thoughts on this topic, but you basically just summed up everything I was going to say for me. :D

[efoote868]

This post is advocating lying to students and parents.
If that's how you or anyone else interpreted my post, then I didn't form the post well enough.


We tell our robotics students that to be on the team and to go to competitions, they need to participate every weekday during build season, which is 6 weeks long.

If we told our students that to be on the team, the need to participate every day during the season (including weekends), which is 12 weeks long, there would be many students that would not join because of that time commitment.

After the stop build date, we don't require or even expect every student to participate between stop build date and competition, but those that participated through the 6 week build season are allowed to travel with the team to competitions.

There are many students that would not sign up for 12 weeks that end up participating daily through the 12 week period because they're hooked on FIRST.

Why does FIRST need to do this? Why can't you just do it on your team?
It's an easier sell. It's easier to get casual participation - say a shop teacher, someone required from the school for a school team to function. We need you every day for 6 weeks, then a competition, then the year is over. The stop build day makes it easier for mentors to say, "that's it, we're done."

Removing the stop build day entirely makes the time commitment bigger and a harder sell for new members, new mentors, and new teams.

[martin417]

...

6) Competitions would soooo much less stressful. Teams would be able to help other teams more. We would actually have time to walk around and see other teams and the exhibits. I think the level of performance of all teams would increase. How many times have you said or heard, "it worked perfectly on our practice robot"?

Imagine If all teams were inspected before practice matches started? There might be a rush and a line-up at inspection immediately after the pits open the first day! The horror!

[jman4747]

Imagine If all teams were inspected before practice matches started? There might be a rush and a line-up at inspection immediately after the pits open the first day! The horror!

I wish that was the problem we had now. That should be like a goal.

[Joe Johnson]

Related thread: Zondag steps up to the plate and knocks it out of the park. (https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=150966)

Dr. Joe J.

[ahartnet]

I'm generally for eliminating stop build day. My only concerns with it is that it does serve as an important milestone for probably several people in FIRST who are involved in capacities beyond mentorship. If we have an unrestricted season or potentially even the 8 hrs of unbag weekly proposed by Jim of the Killer Bees - it'd be harder to peel me away from my team to volunteer for an event. If we're just working with the practice bot and a 30 lb withholding allowance, it seems easier to leave it to the hands of particular subsystems. If it's potentially the whole robot, I'd want to be around. Maybe that's just me and I'm overbearing/controlling.

That said, I think anyone that thinks things would be less stressful for any reason is fooling themselves. Yes, it would enable teams that are capable to help teams that are struggling more (inviting teams without a field to come do driving practice and the like), but as Parkinson's law states, the work fills to the time allowed. Top tier teams are already pushing themselves to the limits and things won't change (much) for them. Teams trying to develop into year in and year out contenders will have better robots, but will be just as stressed. If unrestricted robot access would have let you complete that "1 more thing" this year, all that would happen is you would move on to that next "1 more thing". That's what pulls us into FIRST in the first place. The only place where I see there being objectively less stress is for teams in an area that can get pre-inspected and are willing to do so. I think a major problem is that many of the teams that would benefit largely from being pre-inspected will likely not see or respond to emails setting that time up, or are far away from other teams where getting someone to do a pre-inspection would be tough. Additionally teams far away from a team with the resources to build a field for practice time will still be hindered. How many teams are far enough away from a practice field that they really still won't be prepared for competition?

Even with all the above though, bag day seems to be a detriment your average FRC team.

[FrankJ]

I wish that was the problem we had now. That should be like a goal.

The robot inspectors would love to have to deal with that problem. Much better than trying to get a robot to pass its inspection so it can participate in seeding mathes.

[Tim Sharp]

Removing the stop build day entirely makes the time commitment bigger and a harder sell for new members, new mentors, and new teams.
I think exactly the opposite is true. It's easier to sell a lower level commitment for a longer period of time than it is to sell a "total immersion" commitment for 6 weeks.

[Basel A]

If that's how you or anyone else interpreted my post, then I didn't form the post well enough.


We tell our robotics students that to be on the team and to go to competitions, they need to participate every weekday during build season, which is 6 weeks long.

If we told our students that to be on the team, the need to participate every day during the season (including weekends), which is 12 weeks long, there would be many students that would not join because of that time commitment.

After the stop build date, we don't require or even expect every student to participate between stop build date and competition, but those that participated through the 6 week build season are allowed to travel with the team to competitions.

There are many students that would not sign up for 12 weeks that end up participating daily through the 12 week period because they're hooked on FIRST.


It's an easier sell. It's easier to get casual participation - say a shop teacher, someone required from the school for a school team to function. We need you every day for 6 weeks, then a competition, then the year is over. The stop build day makes it easier for mentors to say, "that's it, we're done."

Removing the stop build day entirely makes the time commitment bigger and a harder sell for new members, new mentors, and new teams.

I don't understand. How does removing Stop Build Day make you change your team's work schedule?

[efoote868]

I don't understand. How does removing Stop Build Day make you change your team's work schedule?

With Stop Build Day - robot goes into a bag per the rules, majority of the team is done until competition

Without Stop Build Day - robot gets worked on right up until competition, majority of the team works until competition.

Yes, teams can limit themselves and self police, but practically speaking that's not how it will work. For some teams, that's not even how it works now.

[AdamHeard]

With Stop Build Day - robot goes into a bag per the rules, majority of the team is done until competition

Without Stop Build Day - robot gets worked on right up until competition, majority of the team works until competition.

Yes, teams can limit themselves and self police, but practically speaking that's not how it will work. For some teams, that's not even how it works now.

You're currently competed in districts... You already get unbag windows and can have the majority of the team continuing work if they desire. If you're not currently doing that, it's a choice you're making.

[Chris Hibner]

5) Several years ago when we only had a few kids and a couple mentors, I remember everyone working flat out until bag day to finish the competition robot. The kids and mentors were all exhausted. We didn't have the bandwidth to build 2 robots simultaneously. We'd take a couple days off then peel ourselves off the floor and have to start building the practice robot. It certainly paid off, but felt so unnecessary. I would have much rather continued working and practicing on the competition robot.


Your entire post was spot on for me, but this one best describes it for me.

[efoote868]

You're currently competed in districts... You already get unbag windows and can have the majority of the team continuing work if they desire. If you're not currently doing that, it's a choice you're making.

I'm not arguing against unbag windows, heck give every team 168 hours of unbag time per week during competition season. But I want the stop build day because it's a natural time for teams to reorganize and provide relief for casual participants.

[XaulZan11]

If the results of are the survey are mixed, I'd suggest a one year trial run of eliminating bagging the robot. Teams attending the North/East Championship do not bag their robots while those attending the South/West Championship still bag it. Survey the teams after the season and see which sample enjoyed the season more.

[notmattlythgoe]

If the results of are the survey are mixed, I'd suggest a one year trial run of eliminating bagging the robot. Teams attending the North/East Championship do not bag their robots while those attending the South/West Championship still bag it. Survey the teams after the season and see which sample enjoyed the season more.

What about teams that attend an event from the other side?

[notmattlythgoe]

I'm not arguing against unbag windows, heck give every team 168 hours of unbag time per week during competition season. But I want the stop build day because it's a natural time for teams to reorganize and provide relief for casual participants.

"You have to bag your robot at this time on this day, but then can immediately unbag it to continue working on it."

http://i.imgur.com/jKL1MHc.gif

[XaulZan11]

What about teams that attend an event from the other other side?

For one season, I think you could restrict teams traveling outside their Champs-split region (or at least prevent non-bag teams traveling into a bag region).

[Basel A]

With Stop Build Day - robot goes into a bag per the rules, majority of the team is done until competition

Without Stop Build Day - robot gets worked on right up until competition, majority of the team works until competition.

Yes, teams can limit themselves and self police, but practically speaking that's not how it will work. For some teams, that's not even how it works now.

I'd say you're already self-policing by not mandating your students continue coming after six weeks. If you keep doing exactly that (only mandate work schedule for the first six weeks), you'll likely end up in roughly the same situation you're currently in. Do you disagree?

I really don't think most teams are limiting their work schedule because of Stop Build. If they want to work more, then they're already working more. If they don't want to work more, nothing is going to make them work more. This change, in my mind, mostly makes that work more time- and cost-efficient.

[efoote868]

I'd say you're already self-policing by not mandating your students continue coming after six weeks. If you keep doing exactly that (only mandate work schedule for the first six weeks), you'll likely end up in roughly the same situation you're currently in. Do you disagree?

Hours and work schedule I agree, but the team would feel differently about it.

[Rangel(kf7fdb)]

If the results of are the survey are mixed, I'd suggest a one year trial run of eliminating bagging the robot. Teams attending the North/East Championship do not bag their robots while those attending the South/West Championship still bag it. Survey the teams after the season and see which sample enjoyed the season more.

Sure but lets instead have North keep the bag and South test out the unbag. ::rtm::

[efoote868]

"You have to bag your robot at this time on this day, but then can immediately unbag it to continue working on it."

The 30 lb withholding allowance already doesn't make sense, so...

[Mr V]

Imagine If all teams were inspected before practice matches started? There might be a rush and a line-up at inspection immediately after the pits open the first day! The horror!

I wish that was the problem we had now. That should be like a goal.

The robot inspectors would love to have to deal with that problem. Much better than trying to get a robot to pass its inspection so it can participate in seeding mathes.

One of the advantages of how we run the District System in the PNW is that there are no practice matches on Day 0. Day 0 is all about getting inspected.

Because of that 15-20 minutes after the pits open the line starts to form at the scale and as they complete the weigh in and sizing check teams sign up for inspection. The vast majority of teams do complete inspection that night. Yes there are times when we have a team or two that were are scrambling to get into compliance or conditional compliance before the first match.

[PayneTrain]

The 30 lb withholding allowance already doesn't make sense, so...

Why?

efoote, could you explain how Stop Build Day is supported by the strategic pillars of FIRST (http://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/frc/blog/where-is-first-going)?

[notmattlythgoe]

Why

efoote, could you explain how Stop Build Day is supported by the strategic pillars of FIRST (http://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/frc/blog/where-is-first-going)?

I'm as confused as you...

https://media.giphy.com/media/CDJo4EgHwbaPS/giphy.gif

[efoote868]

Why?

efoote, could you explain how Stop Build Day is supported by the strategic pillars of FIRST (http://www.firstinspires.org/robotics/frc/blog/where-is-first-going)?

Ensure Sustainability.

EDIT-
Ensure Sustainability: It’s really hard to grow and impact more kids if our foundation is not sustainable. This comment applies equally well to our teams, partners, supporters and FIRST overall. With everything we do, we must think about the sustainability of our programs and solutions. Sustainability also has many dimensions, including financial resources, human resources and other capabilities. I encourage each of you to think about how this applies to your role within our community---who or how will your effort be continued if you are not there? Who will support your team if a long-time Sponsor goes away or if a Mentor retires and moves away?


Mentor/Student/Team burnout is a very real thing. Stop build day, when implemented properly, can avoid that.

[PayneTrain]

Ensure Sustainability.

great post d00d

[BotDesigner]

Sure but lets instead have North keep the bag and South test out the unbag. ::rtm::

+1 :)

[efoote868]

wow really thorough explanation

as someone who can appreciate a great troll job i must also criticize a blatantly lazy one

edit: really regretting reneging on saying i am done with this digital armpit

ChiefDelphi is what you make it. ::ouch::

[PayneTrain]

ChiefDelphi is what you make it. ::ouch::

up to/around 48 hours all posts can be what you make them even after they have been quoted

[EmileH]

please
close
this
thread

ok bye

[AdamHeard]

please
close
this
thread

ok bye

Why?

Aside from a few tangents and loose personal attacks, it's actually been fairly on topic and productive with many people thoroughly explaining their reasoning for and against the change.

[efoote868]

up to/around 48 hours all posts can be what you make them even after they have been quoted

Typing on a smartphone and copying/pasting isn't very easy. What you accused me of laziness was a mistake that was corrected in 3 minutes. I'd appreciate it if you toned it down.

[PayneTrain]

Typing on a smartphone and copying/pasting isn't very easy. What you accused me of laziness was a mistake that was corrected in 3 minutes. I'd appreciate it if you toned it down.
It's ok to wait to write things on the internet. Not like the gremlins in the sewer are going to eat your hands before you get time to type something out at a computer. There's also a preview button that you can/should use before every post you make if you don't want to make mistakes.

--Moving On--

Here is how the two schools of thought compare in their support of the strategic pillars of FIRST:


Ensure Sustainability: It’s really hard to grow and impact more kids if our foundation is not sustainable. This comment applies equally well to our teams, partners, supporters and FIRST overall. With everything we do, we must think about the sustainability of our programs and solutions. Sustainability also has many dimensions, including financial resources, human resources and other capabilities. I encourage each of you to think about how this applies to your role within our community---who or how will your effort be continued if you are not there? Who will support your team if a long-time Sponsor goes away or if a Mentor retires and moves away?


Mentor/Student/Team burnout is a very real thing. Stop build day, when implemented properly, can avoid that.

That's a very good idea.

How Does Abolishing "Stop Build Day" Fit FIRST's Strategic Pillars (http://goo.gl/Zms1ce)

Expand Access and Participation, Broad and Deep:

A Short build season is one of the hardest parts about FRC for new teams. More time allows for more time to get help and work with veteran teams. Abolishing “Stop Build Day” makes FRC less scary for new teams.
More out of bag time allows for more demonstrations and scrimmage events during the season.
Level the field for international teams: Teams outside of North America have a very hard time competing at multiple events. By abolishing “Stop Build Day” new areas with very opportunities for events could hold smaller unofficial scrimmages and gain experience during the season.


Increase Diversity:

In conjunction with expanding access to new areas around the world we will dramatically add to our cultural diversity of the program.
By abolishing “Stop Build Day” we are able to dramatically reduce the cost of fielding a competitive team making it less expensive for global expansion and deep expansion to schools and areas that cannot currently afford an FRC team.


Scale Efficiently:
- The elite teams in FRC are amazing.
- New teams need every advantage they can get and one of the biggest is how open and caring FRC teams are towards new teams. By abolishing “Stop Build Day”:

Veteran mentors could help more young teams since losing a day of build is less important when there are more of them.
Young teams have more time to learn, compete, and be inspired by veteran teams during the season.
Local scrimmages and practice sessions could reduce the need for dramatic increases in events to meet team demand as more and more teams wish to compete more often.
More time to fix the problems introduced by inexperienced teams. Pre-inspection events can be held prior to an event that allow young teams to get ready for their first inspection and not waste precious practice time


Ensure Sustainability:
Spending countless resources traveling to multiple events, building multiple robots and spare parts for them is not a sustainable solution.
- Abolish “Stop Build Day” and

Teams can spend more of their money on growing their STEM program to reach more students.
Have more time to support and elevate young and rookie teams.
Hold demonstrations and workshops to increase team growth in their areas.
Hold in season scrimmages that let teams compete more often for less cost to the program.


Achieve Broad Recognition:
The best way I can think of to achieve broad recognition is to increase the level of play on the field. Spectators don’t want to watch robots that are inoperable, uncontrollable, and aren’t meeting game objectives.
- By abolishing “Stop Build Day” we can

Increase the level of play on the field.
Reduce the number of robots that are inoperable during a match.
Give teams more time with their robot to iterate and improve when there are errors.
Give teams more time to work on programming and increase the challenge that the majority teams can meet.
Put on a better show!


#BanTheBag


Which argument is stronger?

[jman4747]

If the results of are the survey are mixed, I'd suggest a one year trial run of eliminating bagging the robot. Teams attending the North/East Championship do not bag their robots while those attending the South/West Championship still bag it. Survey the teams after the season and see which sample enjoyed the season more.

Almost perfect. Just reverse the regions.;)

[AdamHeard]

Almost perfect. Just reverse the regions.;)

Yeah? Why punish the south champs even more...?

[Ian Curtis]

My experience doing software design has mostly been along these soft-deadlines you mention. I worked for a medical device company for a long time. We would have a hard deadline for the *.0 releases, and have to get everything finished for them so we could send them to testing and then to the FDA on time. But once they were sent off to testing, we immediately started working on the *.1 release, fixing everything that was wrong (ie identified in testing) with the *.0 release. And ultimately, the users never saw the *.0 release, we were able to go straight to the field with the *.1 release instead.

Jon, I agree that *.1 releases are critical for getting FIRST robots that can effectively play the game and are fun to watch. Do we agree that Jim's proposal (https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=150966) is a much more effective way of teams getting that *.1 release than the status quo?

[Andy Baker]

I'll chime in on this, since I have already said it to folks at FIRST and friends who have asked my opinion:

As a owner of a company who makes money from teams who build second robots and as a 20 year FIRST mentor, my opinion is to get rid of bag day.

My reasons are similar to what Allen Gregory IV has stated (among many other people) so eloquently. However, I do understand the people who still want bag day. Weighing the two options, I vote for no bag.

Sincerely,
Andy B.

[FrankJ]

Well the other Frank just announce it will not happen this year.

[Brian Maher]

Well the other Frank just announce it will not happen this year.

Link to relevant blog post. (https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=150971)

[bdaroz]

Link to relevant blog post. (https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=150971)

Nothing like getting our hopes up... :(

[Sperkowsky]

I'm putting on a tin foil hat.

Do you think first intended to use this poll as justification for keeping bag and tag expecting the community to lean heavily towards it staying? They were then surprised with either results leaning heavily the other way and decided to back track making it clear they weren't changing anything for 2017. Based on frank saying on fun a few months ago that bag and tag was staying saying it was a key part of Frc I found this poll a bit odd in the first place.

Frank is usually fairly careful about what he posts on blogs so I find it a little strange that he didn't mention this poll would have no effect on 2017.

So yea. Just wondering if anyone thinks this could have been what happened.

[Jay O'Donnell]

I'm putting on a tin foil hat.

Do you think first intended to use this poll as justification for keeping bag and tag expecting the community to lean heavily towards it staying? They were then surprised with either results leaning heavily the other way and decided to back track making it clear they weren't changing anything for 2017. Based on frank saying on fun a few months ago that bag and tag was staying saying it was a key part of Frc I found this poll a bit odd in the first place.

Frank is usually fairly careful about what he posts on blogs so I find it a little strange that he didn't mention this poll would have no effect on 2017.

So yea. Just wondering if anyone thinks this could have been what happened.

I actually thought the poll was seemingly built towards people against bag and tag. And no, I seriously doubt this is what FIRST doing. They've been very open with their reasoning for doing things over the last few years (even is the community doesn't always agree with it).

[Chris is me]

I'm putting on a tin foil hat.

Do you think first intended to use this poll as justification for keeping bag and tag expecting the community to lean heavily towards it staying? They were then surprised with either results leaning heavily the other way and decided to back track making it clear they weren't changing anything for 2017. Based on frank saying on fun a few months ago that bag and tag was staying saying it was a key part of Frc I found this poll a bit odd in the first place.

Frank is usually fairly careful about what he posts on blogs so I find it a little strange that he didn't mention this poll would have no effect on 2017.

So yea. Just wondering if anyone thinks this could have been what happened.

The poll has been open for less than a day. I highly doubt this is a measured response to unexpected poll numbers. It's much more likely that the poll was to gauge opinions for future seasons.

He probably didn't initially mention that the poll wouldn't effect 2017 because of the numerous times he had already announced Stop Build Day would be continuing for 2017. Just a week or so ago he even confirmed the specific time.

[AllenGregoryIV]

BanTheBag.Spectrum3847.org

34 slides on why we need to abolish "Stop Build Day".

A lot of it it is details on how teams are currently building well past this artificial build limit. Also some counter arguments to the most common arguments for keeping the status quo. Even a brief discussion of the fact that there is little we can do to enforce these rules anyway.

[dirtbikerxz]

I personally am a fan of the bag. We don't have a lot of resources, we are a team of 2 mentors and 6 active students. We definitely don't have time to build a second bot, and we barely finish (or don't finish some years) before bag day. But it offers a challenge that I absolutely enjoy. While I know that a team like 118 that has 2+ bots, will most likely always beat us, I don't think we should move or remove build date.

[niklas674]

I personally am a fan of the bag. We don't have a lot of resources, we are a team of 2 mentors and 6 active students. We definitely don't have time to build a second bot, and we barely finish (or don't finish some years) before bag day. But it offers a challenge that I absolutely enjoy. While I know that a team like 118 that has 2+ bots, will most likely always beat us, I don't think we should move or remove build date.

I have to agree. I'd much prefer to keep the challenge level that is currently present with bag and tag. It's fun, and I noticed that personally it pushed myself and everyone else on my team to the max and shows what everyone can truly do. While not having a bag and tag and being able to still work on the robot during this time, i personally wouldn't have as much fun.

[Sperkowsky]

I have to agree. I'd much prefer to keep the challenge level that is currently present with bag and tag. It's fun, and I noticed that personally it pushed myself and everyone else on my team to the max and shows what everyone can truly do. While not having a bag and tag and being able to still work on the robot during this time, i personally wouldn't have as much fun.

I personally am a fan of the bag. We don't have a lot of resources, we are a team of 2 mentors and 6 active students. We definitely don't have time to build a second bot, and we barely finish (or don't finish some years) before bag day. But it offers a challenge that I absolutely enjoy. While I know that a team like 118 that has 2+ bots, will most likely always beat us, I don't think we should move or remove build date.

I agree the challenge is cool. In 2013, 2014, and 2015 our team did not finish a robot by stop build. So, I set our "Stop Build Day" to the end of week 4. A lot of members believed me the entire year no one actually calculating the amount of weeks. It was also fun telling people we still have 2 and a half weeks once they thought they hit stop build day.

[AllenGregoryIV]

I have to agree. I'd much prefer to keep the challenge level that is currently present with bag and tag. It's fun, and I noticed that personally it pushed myself and everyone else on my team to the max and shows what everyone can truly do. While not having a bag and tag and being able to still work on the robot during this time, i personally wouldn't have as much fun.

What would prevent you from still challenging yourself and your team to finish in ~45.5 days (we don't have 6 weeks). An open bag gives every team the right to choose how long they spend on their robot prior to putting on the field for their first match, assuming they start after kickoff. You can still acquire bags and zip ties*. Removing stop build just allows the teams who currently are struggling to continue to work after the build season, a little reprieve on draining their resources.

If you miss having your ROBOT LOCK UP FORM verified I'll even volunteer to check any forms brought to me at events where I'm LRI after we abolish "Stop Build Day".

[Hitchhiker 42]

I'd just like to mention one more thing that could play an impact: how we talk about FRC. A lot of times, when I'm describing FRC to people not involved with it, a big part I mention is the 6 weeks aspect. I think that really drives home the point that not only are we doing something really cool and hard, but also in a very limited amount of time. I definetly think that for outreach, the "6 weeks" aspect helps in attracting people to an even cooler thing. Something to think about.

[dirtbikerxz]

I really agree. When pitching FRC to my peers or strangers, and I show them our bot, they always ask "how long did that take you guys to build? several months?" The expression they have when I reply with 6 weeks is awesome.

Being able to challenge ourselves, and doing everything possible to get every last bit built within that time period is just plain fun. I mean sure, we are still working after build season end, but those "6 weeks" are truly super fun and worth it. I would not want to get rid of it.

[niklas674]

What would prevent you from still challenging yourself and your team to finish in ~45.5 days (we don't have 6 weeks). An open bag gives every team the right to choose how long they spend on their robot prior to putting on the field for their first match, assuming they start after kickoff. You can still acquire bags and zip ties*. Removing stop build just allows the teams who currently are struggling to continue to work after the build season, a little reprieve on draining their resources.

If you miss having your ROBOT LOCK UP FORM verified I'll even volunteer to check any forms brought to me at events where I'm LRI after we abolish "Stop Build Day".

There is nothing stopping us from setting that limit, but if you had the option to keep working or stop earlier then most of the other teams, you would obviously keep working. The point is that given there is a set deadline vs a general time frame personally pushes me harder.

Another issue with abolishing this is nothing is stopping a team from waiting until comp season to see what the best robot is and build that exact robot. It would eliminate originality. The current set up allows you to copy basic mechanisms I.e can grabbers but keep your robot basically the same.

I feel that the stop build day gives each student a possibility to think creatively and come up with an original design. Now I'm not saying that every team would do that but the option is there.

[AllenGregoryIV]

I'd just like to mention one more thing that could play an impact: how we talk about FRC. A lot of times, when I'm describing FRC to people not involved with it, a big part I mention is the 6 weeks aspect. I think that really drives home the point that not only are we doing something really cool and hard, but also in a very limited amount of time. I definetly think that for outreach, the "6 weeks" aspect helps in attracting people to an even cooler thing. Something to think about.

But it's a lie. We don't have 6 weeks even if teams stopped right at "Stop Build Day" it's 45 days 12 Hours . If we are lying already, we can just keep lying after we abolish "Stop Build Day".

[dirtbikerxz]

There is nothing stopping us from setting that limit, but if you had the option to keep working or stop earlier then most of the other teams, you would obviously keep working. The point is that given there is a set deadline vs a general time frame personally pushes me harder.

Another issue with abolishing this is nothing is stopping a team from waiting until comp season to see what the best robot is and build that exact robot. It would eliminate originality. The current set up allows you to copy basic mechanisms I.e can grabbers but keep your robot basically the same.

I feel that the stop build day gives each student a possibility to think creatively and come up with an original design. Now I'm not saying that every team would do that but the option is there.

While I disagree with the fact that only minor changes (like can grabbers) can be made (because, I have seen teams basically rebuild their bot over a period of 3 regionals). I completely agree with the deadline part. Having a 6 week crunch period just generally causes me to focus much more. For example, If a teacher gives us a research project due in 4 weeks, people probably won't start working on it dedicatedly till like week 3. But if she says we only have a few days, then you can bet that project is all students will be doing.

And yes I know people can counter argue that with "but if you were dedicated enough than you would focus yourself even without a deadline.", lets be real here. While that is the ideal thing to do. Very few High school students are capable of doing that

[dirtbikerxz]

But it's a lie. We don't have 6 weeks even if teams stopped right at "Stop Build Day" it's 45 days 12 Hours . If we are lying already, we can just keep lying after we abolish "Stop Build Day".

Okay Mr. Gregory I'm starting to think that you are just completely trolling all of us now. Especially with that last reply (no disrespect). That doesn't seem like a statement you would say normally.

[Hitchhiker 42]

But it's a lie. We don't have 6 weeks even if teams stopped right at "Stop Build Day" it's 45 days 12 Hours . If we are lying already, we can just keep lying after we abolish "Stop Build Day".

Let's be honest here, do people really care exactly how long we spend? Six weeks is an approximation. One good enough for PR purposes.
Example: If I tell you each of my classes is 42 minutes and 30 seconds, is that helpful? No, it's more helpful to just say 45 minutes. That's not lying.

[AllenGregoryIV]

There is nothing stopping us from setting that limit, but if you had the option to keep working or stop earlier then most of the other teams, you would obviously keep working. The point is that given there is a set deadline vs a general time frame personally pushes me harder.

That deadline doesn't exist now. Many many teams are building well past the "deadline". The only teams that aren't either don't have the resources or are choosing not to.


Another issue with abolishing this is nothing is stopping a team from waiting until comp season to see what the best robot is and build that exact robot. It would eliminate originality. The current set up allows you to copy basic mechanisms I.e can grabbers but keep your robot basically the same.
I feel that the stop build day gives each student a possibility to think creatively and come up with an original design. Now I'm not saying that every team would do that but the option is there.

There is something stopping them from doing it well. FRC Robots are hard and expensive. Would some teams try this, probably. Would they win a world title unlikely.

Do teams rebuild their robots in the likeness or other robots during the competition season already? Yes of course they do. In 2015 the robot we built during build season never even saw a single match of FRC competition. We stripped it down completely and built a new robot based on designs we saw. It's already happening, you can't avoid something that already exists. There are countless other examples of full in season rebuilds using inspiration from other teams.

The option to do that is already there, and very few people take it. Just like very few people would take it if we got rid of "Stop Build Day".

[nerdrock101]

I personally am a fan of the bag. We don't have a lot of resources, we are a team of 2 mentors and 6 active students. We definitely don't have time to build a second bot, and we barely finish (or don't finish some years) before bag day. But it offers a challenge that I absolutely enjoy. While I know that a team like 118 that has 2+ bots, will most likely always beat us, I don't think we should move or remove build date.

Lack of resources is one of the things we struggle with as well. We have very few dedicated mentors on our team (many of them are parents that float in and out) and very few members to boot. As a result, we meet nearly every night and weekend just to scrape a bot together. If build season were extended, we would have to continue that pace for much longer. I can give my time for robots for six weeks, but it's hard on my personal life, let alone adding four or more weeks to that. On the other hand, if we're not there, the students can't work, and that'd be doing a disservice to them. Eliminating bag and tag is not a fix for all teams in this position.

[AllenGregoryIV]

Let's be honest here, do people really care exactly how long we spend? Six weeks is an approximation. One good enough for PR purposes.
Example: If I tell you each of my classes is 42 minutes and 30 seconds, is that helpful? No, it's more helpful to just say 45 minutes. That's not lying.

Taken from Jim Zondag's excellent paper. Discussion on the paper is here (https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=150966).
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CryX9IFUAAAjXZr.jpg

Claiming six weeks when so many teams use the WITHHOLDING ALLOWANCE, practice bots, multiple competitions, and more to extend their build season isn't just PR cover up, it's a lie.

[Hitchhiker 42]

That deadline doesn't exist now. Many many teams are building well past the "deadline". The only teams that aren't either don't have the resources or are choosing not to.


I think the idea here is that's it's more of a personal (or team) challenge within the team, not outside it. I know I definetly enjoy build season as a challenge that not only challenges me in the robotics area, but also my time management skills, etc.

I can give my time for robots for six weeks, but it's hard on my personal life, let alone adding four or more weeks to that.

To be fair, FIRST is advertised as being "The hardest fun you'll ever have"

[AllenGregoryIV]

I think the idea here is that's it's more of a personal (or team) challenge within the team, not outside it. I know I definetly enjoy build season as a challenge that not only challenges me in the robotics area, but also my time management skills, etc.
I understand, my point is that if it's internal, removing HQ's "Stop Build Day" doesn't prevent teams from implementing their own.

Lack of resources is one of the things we struggle with as well. We have very few dedicated mentors on our team (many of them are parents that float in and out) and very few members to boot. As a result, we meet nearly every night and weekend just to scrape a bot together. If build season were extended, we would have to continue that pace for much longer. I can give my time for robots for six weeks, but it's hard on my personal life, let alone adding four or more weeks to that. On the other hand, if we're not there, the students can't work, and that'd be doing a disservice to them. Eliminating bag and tag is not a fix for all teams in this position.

I understand that meeting more is hard. But the idea that you are using the same amount of time as every other team just isn't true. Teams are already building well past this "Stop Build Time". You could still stop at 45.5 days, if that's what you are currently choosing to do.

[dirtbikerxz]

Lack of resources is one of the things we struggle with as well. We have very few dedicated mentors on our team (many of them are parents that float in and out) and very few members to boot. As a result, we meet nearly every night and weekend just to scrape a bot together. If build season were extended, we would have to continue that pace for much longer. I can give my time for robots for six weeks, but it's hard on my personal life, let alone adding four or more weeks to that. On the other hand, if we're not there, the students can't work, and that'd be doing a disservice to them. Eliminating bag and tag is not a fix for all teams in this position.

Meeting more is not hard for us. All of us are super dedicated, even working on code and stuff into wee hours in the night at our respective homes. We will do anything that could help us win. But that said, I still say that we need bag day. I see it as a challenge that teaches students valuable lessons in time management and crunch time that they can't learn in many other places.

[dirtbikerxz]

I understand, my point is that if it's internal, removing HQ's "Stop Build Day" doesn't prevent teams from implementing their own.

In all honesty, given extra time, would a team (no matter what they say about liking stop build day) actually stop building based on a internal bag day? I agree with some of your points Mr. Gregory. But I think the advantages of bag day outweigh the advantages of no bag.

[Sperkowsky]

In all honesty, given extra time, would a team (no matter what they say about liking stop build day) actually stop building based on a internal bag day? I agree with some of your points Mr. Gregory. But I think the advantages of bag day outweigh the advantages of no bag.

You really lost me.

You want a day but you wont follow your own; arguing, "would a team actually stop building." That makes sense but then why do you want stop build day. There would still be a hard deadline. Its your first event.

[nerdrock101]

I understand, my point is that if it's internal, removing HQ's "Stop Build Day" doesn't prevent teams from implementing their own.



I understand that meeting more is hard. But the idea that you are using the same amount of time as every other team just isn't true. Teams are already building well past this "Stop Build Time". You could still stop at 45.5 days, if that's what you are currently choosing to do.

Oh I absolutely understand and agree with you that teams don't use the same amount of time. My point was rather that teams would be, in a way, obligated to through competitive pressure and passion to help students get the best FIRST experience possible. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it would require a significant change in how we deal with an already problematic level of mentor burn out.

[EricH]

In all honesty, given extra time, would a team (no matter what they say about liking stop build day) actually stop building based on a internal bag day?
Aye, be honest here. Be brutally honest. If people won't stop building based on an external bag day with some (albeit limited) enforcement, via a variety of legal methods, what makes some people think that people will stop building based on "We think we should stop building?"

Right. Not gonna happen.

So the question isn't "Do we remove Stop Build Day or not?" The question is really "Do we remove Stop Build Day OR do we put in some rules changes that enforce it--like, for example, reduced withholding, no out-of-bag time at all... Or even *gasp* shipping the robot to a neutral site?" Let's see... Shipping robots to all events not in districts ended for 2012 (and in districts even sooner)... out-of-bag started in MI District system in 2009... and witholding has been a thing since about 2009 if I recall correctly. Practice robots have been around since at least '04--and would be very hard to get rid of. Yeah. Not really a question.

I'm not really for removing the Stop Build Day. On the other hand, I can see where the suggestions to remove it are coming from, and sympathize. But then I wonder whether removing it will make things better or worse...

[AllenGregoryIV]

To the previous comments, I'm not trolling anyone. I truly believe that FIRST (HQ and the community) needs to stop telling people it's a 6 week build season. If that is helping us bring in sponsor dollars we are being dishonest. I know of few teams that don't use their WITHHOLDING ALLOWANCE to at least do some work on their robots past the "Stop Build Day". I've tried to stop saying it or at least correct myself when I do, it's hard after all these years.

Oh I absolutely understand and agree with you that teams don't use the same amount of time. My point was rather that teams would be, in a way, obligated to through competitive pressure and passion to help students get the best FIRST experience possible. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it would require a significant change in how we deal with an already problematic level of mentor burn out.

Do you currently not feel pressure to work on your WITHHOLDING ALLOWANCE past the stop build date? The rules in place today allow all teams to continue to work on the robot. The rule book encourages development of programming software after the "Stop Build Day" after the date as well.

[cbale2000]

I really agree. When pitching FRC to my peers or strangers, and I show them our bot, they always ask "how long did that take you guys to build? several months?" The expression they have when I reply with 6 weeks is awesome.

Being able to challenge ourselves, and doing everything possible to get every last bit built within that time period is just plain fun. I mean sure, we are still working after build season end, but those "6 weeks" are truly super fun and worth it. I would not want to get rid of it.

Even if you expanded the definition of the build period to the start of competition season (because at that point, your robot should likely be "built", maybe just not working perfectly yet) even if you still allowed unlimited access, you could still say "8 weeks" and I would bet the reactions would not be that much different. It wouldn't be an entirely inaccurate thing to say to people, and I don't think any reasonable observer expects teams to NOT make improvements to their machines as the competition season progresses.

In reality, if you define build season as "when you stop all work on the robot", build season, as the rules work today, runs from January till your last competition, as late as April.

[dirtbikerxz]

Even if you expanded the definition to the start of competition season (because at that point, your robot should likely be "built", maybe just not working perfectly yet), you could still say "8 weeks" and I would bet the reactions would not be that much different.

Note, I never said that we need to have exactly a 6 week stop build date. I am not stating an opinion on whether or not to MOVE the stop date. I just don't like have NO build date at all, and being allowed to work as much as we want directly on the bot between regionals.

[nerdrock101]

Do you currently not feel pressure to work on your WITHHOLDING ALLOWANCE past the stop build date? The rules in place today allow all teams to continue to work on the robot. The rule book encourages development of programming software after the "Stop Build Day" after the date as well.

I will grant you that; we do spend time after stop build working on code and other small projects. However, it is with a much lower intensity than working on the actual bot simply because it is small projects.

I do see the benefits to eliminating bag and tag and I'd like to see it happen. I just foresee some drawbacks worth mentioning.

[gblake]

Related thread: Zondag steps up to the plate and knocks it out of the park. (https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=150966)

Dr. Joe J.Nah. Not so much.

Scoring points in matches is simply not the correct proxy/metric to use to gauge the success of FRC teams.

There are at least two kinds of people in the world. I am one kind.

Side note, I'm really, really growing weary of seeing the words "competitive" and "elite" in discussions like this. To me they are red flags. YMMV.

PS: I hope FIRST soon realizes the survey's results will be worse than useless. They will be harmful, not neutral or helpful.

[dirtbikerxz]

Do you currently not feel pressure to work on your WITHHOLDING ALLOWANCE past the stop build date? The rules in place today allow all teams to continue to work on the robot. The rule book encourages development of programming software after the "Stop Build Day" after the date as well.

We do work on the allowance, but it does limit the teams, instead of allowing free reign on the bot. With some of the withholding allowance we made this year, it took us most of the thursday before a regional to get it properly mounted and tested on the bot. Which costed us valuable practice time. We effectively traded practice time to add more functions to the bot. It would not have been the same "challenge" if we were allowed to work on the bot the whole time.

[Hitchhiker 42]

Do you currently not feel pressure to work on your WITHHOLDING ALLOWANCE past the stop build date? The rules in place today allow all teams to continue to work on the robot. The rule book encourages development of programming software after the "Stop Build Day" after the date as well.

The difference here is that no auto testing/driving practice can be done, which is typically the bulk of what needs to be done towards the end of build season.

[AllenGregoryIV]

We do work on the allowance, but it does limit the teams, instead of allowing free reign on the bot. With some of the withholding allowance we made this year, it took us most of the thursday before a regional to get it properly mounted and tested on the bot. Which costed us valuable practice time. We effectively traded practice time to add more functions to the bot. It would not have been the same "challenge" if we were allowed to work on the bot the whole time.

Of course it would not be the same challenge, that's why we should get rid of the bag, because it's an artificially harder challenge for lower and mid tier teams than it is for the best teams in the world. Having more money, members, mentor, and resources makes it possible to build longer and produce a better robot.

[gblake]

Taken from Jim Zondag's excellent paper. Discussion on the paper is here (https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=150966).
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CryX9IFUAAAjXZr.jpg

Claiming six weeks when so many teams use the WITHHOLDING ALLOWANCE, practice bots, multiple competitions, and more to extend their build season isn't just PR cover up, it's a lie.OK. Change/fix it by eliminating those things.

Eliminating SBD is hardly the only course available.

[Oblarg]

OK. Change/fix it by eliminating those things.

Eliminating SBD is hardly the only course available.

No, but eliminating SBD is the one that is probably the least-disruptive to existing team build schedules and the one that is least-likely to continue to impact teams in a regressive way.

[PayneTrain]

To the previous comments, I'm not trolling anyone. I truly believe that FIRST (HQ and the community) needs to stop telling people it's a 6 week build season.

For an example of this, I recall that 254 loaned HQ their 2014 World Championship robot to be put on display in Manchester. With the knowledge of that paired with the idea that FIRST touts the idea of the 6 week build season in marketing endeavors, imagine someone pitching a potential supporter of FIRST and including in the pitch

*points*
"Can you believe kids built that in 6 weeks?"
*disbelief on part of potential supporter*

In reading 254's documentation, you would know that disbelief at that quote is well-founded.

We have the habit of telling people how this will be the hardest thing their child will have ever done in their educational career (even though they go to one of the most rigorous schools in the country, the greater your participation on 422, the greater difficulty a student will have at succeeding at much else besides the robots and school). We are still able to bring together a large, strong, and passionate team that performs less bad every year for the most part.

More power to teams that actually tell potential stakeholders you only meet for 45 days plus events and actually stick to that. If you are a team that tells potential stakeholders you only meet for 45 days for build plus events and then you don't, and you keep doing that? You are part of the problem.

[AllenGregoryIV]

OK. Change/fix it by eliminating those things.

Eliminating SBD is hardly the only course available.

Please feel free to propose other courses of action.

[asid61]

Please feel free to propose other courses of action.
I believe Jim Zondag's paper had something in it about giving all teams 8 hours of unbag time each week, to offset the advantage teams get from working on the bot at competitions.

[AllenGregoryIV]

I believe Jim Zondag's paper had something in it about giving all teams 8 hours of unbag time.

He was suggesting eliminating WITHHOLDING ALLOWANCE, and other ways that teams are able to build longer. I don't believe he was suggesting other ways to expand robot access. I believe Zondag's proposal would be a great step forward.

[EricH]

Please feel free to propose other courses of action.
He did.

Let's start with the Witholding Allowance. 30 lb? .25 robot? Nope. Particularly with the amount of COTS items these days, that's a LOT. 12 lb, or .1 robot, would make teams think a lot more about what they're holding back to work on. No limits on raw materials/COTS items--but, you know, you do need to do work on those at the event for them to be useful, even if it is just duct-taping them to your robot. (That's just an example weight, BTW--could be 15, 10, 5, 0... less than 30, though.)

Eliminating multiple competitions is an answer--but, TBH, the howling would pretty quickly convince HQ that that was a very, very bad idea. The "obvious" alternative would be districts for everybody, mind you--not that I'm opposed to that. (Since X cannot be eliminated, it shall henceforth be required, and all that.) BUT, you'd have to get rid of the unbag time before events. (Or count it as part of build season--as in, we have a 6-week build season, plus some quick check time right before competition.)

Practice robots aren't going to be easy to eliminate. There's practically nothing that can be done other than to specifically tell the teams that "We are putting in a rule that says you cannot have a practice robot, and we are making you sign a legally binding document at inspection that says that you adhered to all the rules." And then, of course, trust that they follow the rule. (And I would take a pretty good gamble that if Frank made THAT announcement, the Team Advocate--and Frank--would be swamped within 47 minutes by angry team emails.) Wouldn't try that.

Eliminating Stop Build isn't the only course of action. But continuing to insist that it is means that you've got blinders on.

[gblake]

Please feel free to propose other courses of action.
Hmmmm, maybe return to some of the the previous rules that governed robot construction, give or take some tweaks different from the current tweaks?

Maybe, implement some suggestions I proposed in other similar discussions.

This is an old topic that is a magnet for specious arguments, and is a long dead horse; constantly rehashed here on CD by a tiny, egregiously-lopsided fraction of the total FRC participants.* I haven't spotted a single new idea or argument in this iteration of the conversation.**

Surely neither I nor any other proponents or opponents if SBD/etc.need to repeat what has already been said a zillion times before. Instead this entire thread should be just a collection of hyperlinks to past posts.

What the subject needs is some rigorous, properly-conducted research by an unbiased investigator(s), advised by the people who created, and still guide, the program.

Doesn't that sound reasonable? It's hard to argue against asking for good science/engineering experiments; but it's easy to argue that this thread isn't going to turn into one.

Blake
* I'm painting myself with this broad brush, along with painting the rest of us.
** I read many posts. I skimmed through many posts. I might have missed something novel among them. I'm human, and not perfect.

[AllenGregoryIV]

Eliminating Stop Build isn't the only course of action. But continuing to insist that it is means that you've got blinders on.

The course of action we are talking about is a way to make claiming "robots built in 6 weeks" be the truth. "Stop Build Day" is a separate issue at this point. Unless we can actually stop all robot building and not allow changes on the robot at around Noon eastern time 42 days after kickoff. I don't see how we can do that. There are other possible options, we could magically have everyone compete right at the end of build season, it would require 100s of simultaneous events world wide. I don't think its in any way realistic but at that point I could see "6 week" being the truth.

A bigger point, it shouldn't matter. Very few teams meet every single of day of build season anyway. "6 weeks" is a talking point that has become a sales pitch and a false belief for new teams, mentors, and members. We don't need to hold this "6 week" thing so near and dear. It's not special. Building a ~150lbs robot in around 4 months (113 Days last year) with a group of high school students and mentors is still very impressive.

[fresh_prince]

In all honesty, given extra time, would a team (no matter what they say about liking stop build day) actually stop building based on a internal bag day?

we do spend time after stop build working on code and other small projects. However, it is with a much lower intensity than working on the actual bot simply because it is small projects.


Looking at these two quotes (and some of the discussion going on in the last ~2 dozen replies), it seems there was a bit of a ships-passing-in-the-night going on with the whole discussion about "6 weeks is/isn't a lie" and self-imposed limits.

Part of the argument that Allen presents in his 34 slides (BanTheBag.Spectrum3847.org) is that the 6 weeks (his 45.5 days) is already a sort of "super" internal limit. "Super" in that there are some hoops to jump through, but it is still in many ways an internal limit: each team chooses how much time and effort they put into development after Stop Build Day. Some teams choose to actually stop, some teams (as nerdrock mentioned above) choose to work on small improvements and modifications. Some, however, choose to make radical changes eg rebuilding entire robots at competition (speaking from experience, under Allen's mentorship myself and the other members of the 3847 pit crew completely changed our robot at the 2015 Arkansas Regional).

This is what's being referred to as the "myth of the 6 week build season" - the idea that it's as long and grueling as you make it.

If the man-hours given to development are already a matter of self-regulation and evaluation of a team's own response to that "competitive pressure," and if each team already responds in a different degree, there's no reason to expect that to change if we #BanTheBag. Teams will continue to respond to the same competitive pressure, albeit with a barrier removed that improves convenience. A team that already wasn't driven to bring in a new subsystem or some spare parts under withholding probably won't be that much more likely to actually go through with those plans under a Bag-Free regime, it just makes it easier for the teams that already wanted to but found it difficult to do so (lack of resources to test on practice robot, difficulty in preparing modifications for a robot you can't test them on, etc.).

[efoote868]

If the man-hours given to development are already a matter of self-regulation and evaluation of a team's own response to that "competitive pressure," and if each team already responds in a different degree, there's no reason to expect that to change if we #BanTheBag.
Parkinson's law says otherwise, "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion". If my team has an 8 week build season, we will use all 8 weeks of it. Furthermore, I speculate that we would require the entire team to participate for all 8 weeks, which would prevent students with other activities from joining the team.

The stop build day is the end of our build season. If the stop build day was removed, we would probably spend that extra 2 weeks prototyping, so that the final assembly gets done the night before competition, or early in the morning that very day.


Teams will continue to respond to the same competitive pressure, albeit with a barrier removed that improves convenience. A team that already wasn't driven to bring in a new subsystem or some spare parts under withholding probably won't be that much more likely to actually go through with those plans under a Bag-Free regime, it just makes it easier for the teams that already wanted to but found it difficult to do so (lack of resources to test on practice robot, difficulty in preparing modifications for a robot you can't test them on, etc.).
In my humble opinion, the pressures (and relief!) a team faces isn't the same without a stop build day, which is why I want to keep it.

[cadandcookies]

This is an old topic, and a long dead horse; constantly rehashed here on CD by a tiny, egregiously-lopsided fraction of the total FRC participants.* I haven't spotted a single new idea or argument in this iteration of the conversation.**

Surely neither I nor any other proponents or opponents if SBD/etc.need to repeat what has already been said a zillion times before. Instead this entire thread should be just a collection of hyperlinks to past posts.



While I'd agree that there are some people who really don't have anything new to add to this thread, there are students and mentors from whom I have never heard an opinion on this issue posting in this thread, and I personally see value in them sharing their opinions and experiences with us. If you don't, that's alright, but I'm pretty sure there are others who share my opinions on this.

On another note, you've rehashed this argument in a dozen other threads-- the truth is, clearly other people see a value in periodically discussing issues like this again. We can use our :deadhorse: emojis all we want, but if we just throw all the controversial issues in the freezer since, clearly, nothing ever changes when it comes to FRC, we're not going to get new and valuable ideas on them.







What the subject needs is some rigorous, properly-conducted research by an unbiased investigator(s), advised by the people who created, and still guide, the program.

Doesn't that sound reasonable? It's hard to argue against asking for good science/engineering experiments; but it's easy to argue that this thread isn't going to turn into one.



It does sound reasonable to me for FIRST and the community to work together to do research on this subject. Unbiased investigators might be a bit of a stretch, but certainly investigators with diverse perspectives and backgrounds would be reasonable. I do hope that some of those complaining about the issues with the survey have offered to help with further research on the subject. To any of those people who haven't already, getting in contact with Jamee (the current FRC team advocate) would be a good idea if you're interested in helping or suggesting this to FIRST. The email address is at the end of the survey, but if you can't remember, here it is: FRCTeamAdvocate@usfirst.org

[Ryan Dognaux]

Side note, I'm really, really growing weary of seeing the words "competitive" and "elite" in discussions like this.

Better call up FIRST and demand they remove 'competition' from FRC. The FIRST Robotics Science Fair Demonstration has a nice ring to it.

Once again - just because you don't like the topic doesn't mean others can't discuss it and propose ideas that could actually improve the program. That's what this forum is all about.

[AdamHeard]

He did.

Let's start with the Witholding Allowance. 30 lb? .25 robot? Nope. Particularly with the amount of COTS items these days, that's a LOT. 12 lb, or .1 robot, would make teams think a lot more about what they're holding back to work on. No limits on raw materials/COTS items--but, you know, you do need to do work on those at the event for them to be useful, even if it is just duct-taping them to your robot. (That's just an example weight, BTW--could be 15, 10, 5, 0... less than 30, though.)

Eliminating multiple competitions is an answer--but, TBH, the howling would pretty quickly convince HQ that that was a very, very bad idea. The "obvious" alternative would be districts for everybody, mind you--not that I'm opposed to that. (Since X cannot be eliminated, it shall henceforth be required, and all that.) BUT, you'd have to get rid of the unbag time before events. (Or count it as part of build season--as in, we have a 6-week build season, plus some quick check time right before competition.)

Practice robots aren't going to be easy to eliminate. There's practically nothing that can be done other than to specifically tell the teams that "We are putting in a rule that says you cannot have a practice robot, and we are making you sign a legally binding document at inspection that says that you adhered to all the rules." And then, of course, trust that they follow the rule. (And I would take a pretty good gamble that if Frank made THAT announcement, the Team Advocate--and Frank--would be swamped within 47 minutes by angry team emails.) Wouldn't try that.

Eliminating Stop Build isn't the only course of action. But continuing to insist that it is means that you've got blinders on.

All of these lower the level of play, and reduce the quality of the show.

[Sperkowsky]

So in the f4 chat we hashed out ideas a bit presenting some arguments and I remembered a remnant from our 2015 mess of a stop build day.

https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=134801

So, sorry sam from 2015 stop build day no miracle this time and sorry geetwo Einstein would have been fun.

We ended up with a robot that never lifted a game piece. It had potential to work but it was too much work to get done at the regional. It was a week 5 regional and our only regional. If we had 5 extra weeks we would have had plenty of time to fix the design and if we had 8 hours per week for 4 weeks we would have been able once again to actually field a working robot. We could have potentially fixed the issues in the withholding allowance the issue was though that we didn't know what would fix it. Would more wire wraps fix all of our issues? New rails? Now after the regional I know we would have needed a new plate with 2 levels and 8 more rollers, New rails this time tubing, as well as a more wraps or just a normal winch. But, we had no way or figuring it out and we couldn't really afford building a second one.

Being stuck not knowing if you can fix your robots issues with no real way to test it, is frustrating, sad, and sure as he'll not inspiring. In fact after that season we lost 2 hard working members as it wasn't worth their time anymore. I have yet to hear an argument strong enough to warrant me supporting a bag that can result in hindering a team to that point.

[EricH]

All of these lower the level of play, and reduce the quality of the show. First off: I'm inclined to agree. But... What does that have to do with enforcing a 6-week build period? Which, if I recall correctly, is the current topic of the thread, at least in a general sort of way.

Right. Not much. (And, just to troll a little bit, you been warned: If you want "quality of show", advocate for more Regionals. Without the production company, the show quality drops. [/troll] [/sarcasm])

Also note that I did point out that at least the second and third ideas were non-starters--either team outcry or sheer impracticality. Matter of fact, I think the inverse of the second needs to be the case, where teams are "required" to do multiple events--see also "Districts"--but some areas are still trying to figure out how to get there (and some of those may need some "input" from teams and/or HQ).



I'm inclined to agree that the level of play will probably go down. The question is, will it go down simply from "elite" to "really good", or will it drop even farther, and how much of a drop in play can we tolerate? Remember that most of the teams in this specific discussion are at least average, ranging up to elite, and I'd also suspect that almost all are working towards being up in that elite/powerhouse range. What about the teams that AREN'T at that level? What are their opinions? I think the survey will be rather interesting in that regard. If there's a clear divide, particularly with the high-level teams saying "take it away" and the lower-level teams saying "keep it", that'll be an interesting discussion leading into 2018, to put it mildly.

I seem to recall hearing--or hearing about, it's been a while--where someone (I want to say a rookie team) AT KICKOFF asked Woodie why so short a time as 6 weeks. And the answer was something to the effect of "Because we're trying to make it easier for you", followed by a more detailed explanation that I can't remember all of. Now remember, this is back when 2v2 (I'm pretty sure it was before 4v0) was the latest and greatest game twist, so times have changed.


Basically, you can't have it all. You cannot have an "enforced" 6 weeks without extra rules and giving up level of play. You cannot claim 6 week builds and have teams continue working beyond that, legally. You really cannot allow unbagged primary robots right up until competition and call it a 6-week build! (Unless you're Palmetto '16... :p)



What I think is going on, possibly, is that FIRST has realized that they're in the state where a majority of teams legally work beyond the 6 weeks, despite bags, "Stop Build Day", and encouragement to put tools down. So NOW (some time too late) they're trying to figure out how to extricate themselves from this, and how the teams view the "Tools down" signal, and whether they need to do anything about it. They may be (rather desperately) trying to get teams to say that having a Stop Build is better than not, in order to justify putting the lid back on Pandora's Box. Given the response here, I'm betting that they decide to phase out Stop Build, but it won't be all at once.

To be honest, without the 2010 (or was it '09?) snowstorms, I'm not sure we'd be this far along this soon. That's the first time Withholding was increased from 25 lb, and it never went that low again (65 lb was the number due to the snowstorms in MAR/NE/NY, as I recall). Had that not happened, we might still be discussing the value of bagging robots instead of shipping them, rather than discussing the value of bagging vs. not bagging.

[Big Ideas]

I just took quick pole of lead mentors in my area. The group was split evenly with ALL of the teachers saying "We need our Bag Day" and us non teachers saying No Bag would help the team. I didnt expect that perfect a division.

[Caleb Sykes]

Scoring points in matches is simply not the correct proxy/metric to use to gauge the success of FRC teams.

Jim shows in Point 3 of his paper that there is a reasonable correlation between OPR and team retention. Everyone knows that correlation is not causation, but the correlation does allow us to use OPR as a reasonable proxy for team retention. Teams that have low OPRs are also more likely to fold than teams with high OPRs. Likewise, teams that fold tend to have lower OPRs. Team retention data is probably near to as close as we can get to quantifying the "success of FRC teams" using publicly available data.

We can disagree about how specific policies will impact OPR distributions, team retention rates, or the correlation between the two, but at the present time, OPR does indeed seem to be a reasonable proxy for a given FRC team's success.

[Rangel(kf7fdb)]

Overall I feel like it wouldn't be the end of the world for FIRST to at least try out no stop build day. Someone mentioned that we launch a study but I really don't see how any study is going to be worth anything unless it's actually implemented. Everyone has their idea of what the effects of no stop build day would be but no one really knows for sure. If FIRST can survive trying out regolith, minibot/can arm races, the 2010 ranking system, and no defense, I don't think it is that unreasonable to implement no stop build day for 2018 just to see what the actual results are.

[waialua359]

Overall I feel like it wouldn't be the end of the world for FIRST to at least try out no stop build day. Someone mentioned that we launch a study but I really don't see how any study is going to be worth anything unless it's actually implemented. Everyone has their idea of what the effects of no stop build day would be but no one really knows for sure. If FIRST can survive trying out regolith, minibot/can arm races, the 2010 ranking system, and no defense, I don't think it is that unreasonable to implement no stop build day for 2018 just to see what the actual results are.
While it wouldnt hurt per say, I dont think FIRST should just try it out. If they ever decide to stop the stop build day, there is no turning back.
They created this situation by allowing an xx lb allowance back when teams were unable to access their shops/robots because of forces beyond their control. As a result, that little window they allowed has drastically changed the landscape for many teams in how they approach the build season and the philosophies that go with it. What magnified the situation was the creation of bag/tag to alleviate the growing demand, needing more and more sponsorship from FedEx to send robots to events as the standard. While the mentality towards build season has changed for many teams....i.e. building 2 robots, I dont believe that FIRST overall has changed their philosophy for why they created FRC. Even with the new strategic plan demonstrated by the pillars of FIRST, I think that mission, while updated, fundamentally remains unchanged.
With or without this survey, I believe they are at crossroads because the vehicle they created of getting kids inspired by STEM was a competition. You have folks that care more about the inspiration part and you have others that are passionate about the competition part. I see FIRST having to bend on some of their initial philosophies and mission in order to get rid of the 6 week build season window, while at the same time, making it easier for teams that want to compete at a higher level.

Once you stop the stop build day, the "6 week" term goes out the window forever and the ramifications will be enormous. I just hope that whatever suggesions are made and used, will be a positive step in the right direction for all.

[gblake]

Jim shows in Point 3 of his paper that there is a reasonable correlation between OPR and team retention. Everyone knows that correlation is not causation, but the correlation does allow us to use OPR as a reasonable proxy for team retention. Teams that have low OPRs are also more likely to fold than teams with high OPRs. Likewise, teams that fold tend to have lower OPRs. Team retention data is probably near to as close as we can get to quantifying the "success of FRC teams" using publicly available data.

We can disagree about how specific policies will impact OPR distributions, team retention rates, or the correlation between the two, but at the present time, OPR does indeed seem to be a reasonable proxy for a given FRC team's success.
Nope - For exactly the reason you just gave. Correlation definitely is not causation. Both of the symptoms you mention, and more, could easily be symptoms of something more fundamental that would be essentially unaffected by the SBD. My belief is that this is the case. They are symptoms of a more fundamental problem that is insensitive to SBD machinations. In recent previous discussions I have explained that.

And
Eliminating a true- or pseudo-SBD is certainly not the only way to affect a struggling team's retention (and/or OPR); and IMO isn't the best way. For a reason to agree, see the recent post in this thread that describes some teachers' feelings.

Blake

[DaveL]

I've read all the posts and re-thought what would help level the playing field.
In the NFL, each year top teams lose players and that keeps things interesting.

So let's give each team in a district that failed to reach a regional, extra unbag time or a bag free next season. Team on the Regional system that failed to make the elimination rounds, get the same offer.

Either that or just to a test year and give everyone a bag free year!

Everyone has their idea of what the effects of no stop build day would be but no one really knows for sure. I don't think it is that unreasonable to implement no stop build day for 2018 just to see what the actual results are.

Having to wait for 2018 is harsh. I found it very disruptive to deal with the possibility of not having 775 motors. That was a way bigger issue than not needing to build a 2nd robot. I would like to see Frank change his mind and kill the bag for 2017.

[Andrew Schreiber]

I've read all the posts and re-thought what would help level the playing field.
In the NFL, each year top teams lose players and that keeps things interesting.

So let's give each team in a district that failed to reach a regional, extra unbag time or a bag free next season. Team on the Regional system that failed to make the elimination rounds, get the same offer.



I'm reading this as "if you failed to reach eliminations at all last year here is some benefit to help you".

As a concept, I like the idea. However, I'd like to see some evidence to back it's usefulness. Is there any evidence that extra time with the robot would be effective for these teams? Many of the perpetually underperforming teams I've observed have larger systemic issues that will not be addressed with a 6 month build season let alone an extra 6 days of hands on time with the robot.

[DaveL]

What is the risk of trying?

If it doesn't it doesn't make a difference, I don't see a downside.
If it does make a difference, great!
More competition and more teams learn the value of iterating their design.

Either way we learn from trying something new.

Dave

[Andrew Schreiber]

What is the risk of trying?

If it doesn't it doesn't make a difference, I don't see a downside.
If it does make a difference, great!
More competition and more teams learn the value of iterating their design.

Either way we learn from trying something new.

Dave

There isn't really a downside to trying it. But I prefer not to add logistical headaches without some basis in fact.

I'm for stopping bagging. But I also understand that it would have minimal real impact for low performance teams on their competitiveness [1]. More impactful would be figuring out why so many teams continue to ignore the resources placed in front of them (Ri3D, kitbot, various build days hosted by teams) and figuring out how we can develop more resources and get them used.

Example - how many teams at your events failed to reliably drive? I seem to see at least one per event that's using the kitbot but wiring or programming was too hard. How many fail to move in auto? For me, way too many teams fell into that category. So, the question becomes why? The kitbot can be put together by following instructions. The wiring can be done similarly. And for the most part driving should work fine out of the box. But why is it still so hard?



[1] Yes GBlake, I view this as an important goal in itself, I'm not speaking to "success". I'm solely looking at methods of addressing teams that consistently miss eliminations. I have reasons for this and am more than willing to discuss them via PM if you'd like.

[Lil' Lavery]

Jim shows in Point 3 of his paper that there is a reasonable correlation between OPR and team retention. Everyone knows that correlation is not causation, but the correlation does allow us to use OPR as a reasonable proxy for team retention. Teams that have low OPRs are also more likely to fold than teams with high OPRs. Likewise, teams that fold tend to have lower OPRs. Team retention data is probably near to as close as we can get to quantifying the "success of FRC teams" using publicly available data.

We can disagree about how specific policies will impact OPR distributions, team retention rates, or the correlation between the two, but at the present time, OPR does indeed seem to be a reasonable proxy for a given FRC team's success.

Even if we suppose that there is currently a correlation between OPR and team retention (which I have some dispute with, at least until more data is released (https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1605428&postcount=56)), that doesn't mean that correlation will carry forwards if you take steps to increase OPR. That is to say, the concept of eliminating bag day to raise OPR of teams doesn't mean that fewer teams will fold since we have yet to establish a causal relationship between OPR and team attrition. If teams are folding from a variety of other stressors (under funding/under mentorship/no school support/burn out/etc), raising their OPR will not save those teams from folding.

To put it another way, basing actions purely on the correlation is treating a symptom, not the disease.

[Akash Rastogi]

Nah. Not so much.

Scoring points in matches is simply not the correct proxy/metric to use to gauge the success of FRC teams.

There are at least two kinds of people in the world. I am one kind.

Side note, I'm really, really growing weary of seeing the words "competitive" and "elite" in discussions like this. To me they are red flags. YMMV.

PS: I hope FIRST soon realizes the survey's results will be worse than useless. They will be harmful, not neutral or helpful.

Do you hope to contribute to the discussion or just $@#$@#$@#$@# on things other people post?

You state what is wrong and what is not the correct metric. What are the correct metrics then?

What are the two kinds of people in the world?

Sorry these amazing mentors want the FIRST Robotics Competition to be built around the notion of competition.

[gblake]

...
[1] Yes GBlake, I view this as an important goal in itself, I'm not speaking to "success". I'm solely looking at methods of addressing teams that consistently miss eliminations. I have reasons for this and am more than willing to discuss them via PM if you'd like.I have no problem with "competitiveness" used in the sense you did (and you don't need my permission anyway :)).

The reason it has become a red flag for me (YMMV), is that the conversation here on CD almost always quickly moves to (or begins with) competing (with a high chance of success) for the blue banner, instead of focusing on being able to enjoy an event because you are able to join your colleagues in a match.

I had my first serious conversation about the distinction between the two possible meanings over a decade ago. That opened my eyes. There are definitely (at least) two slants to the way that word is used, and often people talk right past each other when they use it.

Blake

[Karthik]

This is an old topic that is a magnet for specious arguments, and is a long dead horse; constantly rehashed here on CD by a tiny, egregiously-lopsided fraction of the total FRC participants.* I haven't spotted a single new idea or argument in this iteration of the conversation.**

Surely neither I nor any other proponents or opponents if SBD/etc.need to repeat what has already been said a zillion times before. Instead this entire thread should be just a collection of hyperlinks to past posts.


Just because you don't see value in this thread from atop your lofty perch doesn't mean the rest of us don't. The potential elimination of Stop Bag Day would be program altering and defining change, with potential impacts beyond what any of us can imagine. It's natural that people will want to discuss this at length, and it's important that they do so. FIRST just put out a survey to address this topic, yet you're telling the passionate participants of this program that they should stop discussing simply because you, a person who for all I can tell hasn't been a part of this program for over 10 years, don't like it? If I sound frustrated it's because I am. You repeatedly come into these discussions telling people how they should feel and that their opinions are simply wrong. It's one thing to have healthy disagreements, it's another to try and shutdown discussion. (Especially when it's adult on a forum directed at high school students.) So you may think the posters here are egregiously lopsided, but perhaps if you spent more time listening, and less time shouting people down, you might learn something from this thread. I know I have.

Thanks to everyone else on both sides of the coin who've shared their opinions. As stated above, this potential change would affect every single participant in this program. It's important that everyone makes sure their opinion and perspective is heard and understood.

[gblake]

Do you hope to contribute to the discussion or just $@#$@#$@#$@# on things other people post?

You state what is wrong and what is not the correct metric. What are the correct metrics then?

What are the two kinds of people in the world?

Sorry these amazing mentors want the FIRST Robotics Competition to be built around the notion of competition.

Take a breath Askash.

I try to take my cues from some amazing mentors named Woodie, Dean, and Dave. Furthermore, I try to listen carefully beyond the slogans and catch phrases. They purposefully created a program containing compromises, in which the desire to focus on competing is in tension with other goals, and they plainly asked all participants to avoid being seduced too much by the competition tool the program uses.

When I began in FRC, I was 100% focused on the competition. What I learned from Woodie, Dean, and Dave in my first year, taught me a different motivation.

Other people's experiences and thoughtful consideration of the same things I heard from W, D, and D, gave/give them their own motivations.

Joe's post said the paper is a home run. I said it isn't. I also offered that opinion without rehashing the still valid and invalid arguments on both sides of the topic. My reasons are already a matter of public record, and I hoped you would remember them. You were around when I wrote them.

I would delight in spending a day, face-to-face with respected CD friends, including Jim and Joe, untangling the hype that surrounds this subject, and subsequently putting together a funded plan that would separate symptoms from causes, would separate fact from fiction, and would recommend one path for improving FRC. Discussion threads aren't very useful for accomplishing that. They are a step along the path, but are nowhere near the finish.

Blake
What is the metric? Something along the lines of introducing students to enough positive STEM experiences to open their eyes to the possibility that they might enjoy a STEM career. To do that you don't even need to have competitions. You might choose to use competitions, but they aren't required.
Who are the two kinds of people? Those who agree with the motivations and conclusions of Jim's write-up, and those who don't. It's by no means a slam dunk that the paper's methods, conclusions, or recommendations are irrefutable or best. Reasonable people can and do disagree (see some other posts in this thread). Jim is reasonable. I think I am too.

[gblake]

Just because you don't see value in this thread from atop your lofty perch doesn't mean the rest of us don't. The potential elimination of Stop Bag Day would be program altering and defining change, with potential impacts beyond what any of us can imagine. It's natural that people will want to discuss this at length, and it's important that they do so. FIRST just put out a survey to address this topic, yet you're telling the passionate participants of this program that they should stop discussing simply because you, a person who for all I can tell hasn't been a part of this program for over 10 years, don't like it? If I sound frustrated it's because I am. You repeatedly come into these discussions telling people how they should feel and that their opinions are simply wrong. It's one thing to have healthy disagreements, it's another to try and shutdown discussion. (Especially when it's adult on a forum directed at high school students.) So you may think the posters here are egregiously lopsided, but perhaps if you spent more time listening, and less time shouting people down, you might learn something from this thread. I know I have.

Thanks to everyone else on both sides of the coin who've shared their opinions. As stated above, this potential change would affect every single participant in this program. It's important that everyone makes sure their opinion and perspective is heard and understood.Kathik - From my lofty perch I challenged authors (the frequent flyers know who they are) to contribute something new rather than bang their old drums loudly. With respect, the discussion would benefit from that. - Blake

[notmattlythgoe]

....

https://67.media.tumblr.com/3f30e5aff49f8d5fb40896025ea94584/tumblr_n1uazgR1JJ1qln00mo1_500.gif

Kathik - From my lofty perch I challenged authors (the frequent flyers know who they are) to contribute something new rather than bang their old drums loudly. With respect, the discussion would benefit from that. - Blake

And yet you have contributed nothing.

[Caleb Sykes]

Even if we suppose that there is currently a correlation between OPR and team retention (which I have some dispute with, at least until more data is released (https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1605428&postcount=56)), that doesn't mean that correlation will carry forwards if you take steps to increase OPR. That is to say, the concept of eliminating bag day to raise OPR of teams doesn't mean that fewer teams will fold since we have yet to establish a causal relationship between OPR and team attrition. If teams are folding from a variety of other stressors (under funding/under mentorship/no school support/burn out/etc), raising their OPR will not save those teams from folding.

To put it another way, basing actions purely on the correlation is treating a symptom, not the disease.

I completely agree. We can't know that the correlation between OPR and team retention will hold if/when we change fundamental aspects of FRC. I thought that I had made that clear.

We can disagree about how specific policies will impact OPR distributions, team retention rates, or the correlation between the two, but at the present time, OPR does indeed seem to be a reasonable proxy for a given FRC team's success.


I was responding to this statement:
Scoring points in matches is simply not the correct proxy/metric to use to gauge the success of FRC teams.

I am fully 100% aware that correlation is not causation. However, gblake is going a step further by essentially denying that any correlation even exists in the present. This correlation could very well be diminished if we eliminated bag day, or it might increase. We don't know, what we do know though, is that OPR and team retention seem to be relatively strongly correlated in the present. If gblake wants to deny the usefulness of OPR as a metric for team success, that is fine, but it is fallacious to say that OPR is a poor metric for team success in the present just because it might not be correlated with team retention in the future.

[gblake]

And yet you have contributed nothing.Sigh

[gblake]

...
I am fully 100% aware that correlation is not causation. However, gblake is going a step further by essentially denying that any correlation even exists in the present. This correlation could very well be diminished if we eliminated bag day, or it might increase. We don't know, what we do know though, is that OPR and team retention seem to be relatively strongly correlated in the present. If gblake wants to deny the usefulness of OPR as a metric for team success, that is fine, but it is fallacious to say that OPR is a poor metric for team success in the present just because it might not be correlated with team retention in the future.I'm pretty sure I never said that the correlation doesn't exist. Quite the opposite.
Both of the symptoms you mention, and more, could easily be symptoms of something more fundamental that would be essentially unaffected by the SBD. My belief is that this is the case. They are symptoms of a more fundamental problem that is insensitive to SBD machinations. In recent previous discussions I have explained that.

I am saying that FIRST or anyone basing their actions on correlation rather than causation would be a mistake, because it would be gambling (give or take some windage that comes from what their gut tells them) rather than managing.

I am implying that FIRST or anyone else involved should (hopefully, quick like a bunny) dig deeper to find root causes, and also learn (as a result of experiments) which of several approaches to managing the subject create the best cocktail of improvement techniques.

It might turn out that eliminating tools-down in all its forms is the a part of the solution. I am skeptical of that, but during experiments, the chips will fall where they may.

Blake

[Sperkowsky]

No, I am saying that FIRST or anyone basing their actions on correlation rather than causation would be a mistake, because it would be gambling (give ot take some windage that comes from what their gut tells them) rather than managing.

I am implying that FIRST or anyone else involved should (hopefully, quick like a bunny) dig deeper to find root causes, and also learn (as a result of experiments) which of several approaches to managing the subject create the best cocktail of improvement techniques.

It might turn out that eliminating tools-down in all its forms is the a part of the solution. I am skeptical of that, but during experiments, the chips will fall where they may.

We have yet to hear your opinion along with a bit justification after 10 posts. Feel free to link what you have said in the past because after some searching I found nothing.

I infer you want to keep bag and tag, but I do not understand the reasons why. You have contradicted yourself a few times along the way making it really unclear. You seem to want anyone with a different opinion to shut up and let FIRST HQ make the decision, but clearly based on them creating a survey they want to hear what we think about this topic.

[gblake]

We have yet to hear your opinion along with a bit justification after 10 posts. Feel free to link what you have said in the past because after some searching I found nothing.

I infer you want to keep bag and tag, but I do not understand the reasons why. You have contradicted yourself a few times along the way making it really unclear. You seem to want anyone with a different opinion to shut up and let FIRST HQ make the decision, but clearly based on them creating a survey they want to hear what we think about this topic.Sigh

[bkahl]

Sigh

Blake,

Just out of curiosity...

What is your issue with the argument against SBD?

You do not list FRC involvement in your profile, rather FTC and VRC. Both of those competitions do not have a stop build day.

What gives you the right to tell FRC mentors, students, volunteers, etc. that the movement they are trying to spur is stupid and not worth their time, when that exact movement is promoting something that FTC and VRC, the programs that you support, both already have.

You have no substantial evidence to argue, and are telling people presenting serious sets of data they are wasting their time.

Is Jim Zondag's Paper just a blast from the past? (The correct answer is NO). You are telling us that our discussion is meaningless and should just be links to past posts. FIRST has changed. It has evolved. There is new data to be presented and we should be discussing this development of SBD every year, as the Data in Jim's paper presents. SBD is very recently become more of an issue than in years past (at least that is how I interpreted JZ's data).

Stop wasting my time, the other poster's in this thread's time, and (even though I don't care about it) your time.

[Sperkowsky]

Sigh

11 posts and we are all anxious to hear your opinions. Too bad all we have been getting are sighs.

[Brandon Holley]

I am implying that FIRST or anyone else involved should (hopefully, quick like a bunny) dig deeper to find root causes, and also learn (as a result of experiments) which of several approaches to managing the subject create the best cocktail of improvement techniques.

It might turn out that eliminating tools-down in all its forms is the a part of the solution. I am skeptical of that, but during experiments, the chips will fall where they may.

Blake

Blake-

Following the vein of scientific method (objective experimentation, identifying measurable variables, etc). I'm really curious if you could share one (or more) of your own hypotheses that would counter the one Jim (among others) has outlined? Discussing THAT would actually lead to meaningful discussion, I think.

Standing back and simply saying 'we need more experiments' makes it difficult for people who view Jim (among others) findings as pretty conclusive. We need to see the other options, other potential causes, etc.

-Brando

[gblake]

11 posts and we are all anxious to hear your opinions. Too bad all we have been getting are sighs.Instead of updating the "sigh" post, I'll create this one

There was a recent thread on team sustainability: here (https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148548&highlight)

Someone using the ID Sperkowsky participated in that thread: here (https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1590299&postcount=142)

Someone using the ID gblake participated in that thread:
here (https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1589933&postcount=112), here (https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1590412&postcount=166), here (https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1590765&postcount=180), here (https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1590954&postcount=188), and here (https://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1591431&postcount=208), and in other places.

I found those by searching for "build season".

Brandon,

I agree. One suggestion I made recently is in the links above. It is the one I would put at the top of my list of things to try. There are others that are different or are variations on that theme.

Blake

[Caleb Sykes]

I'm pretty sure I never said that the correlation doesn't exist. Quite the opposite.


You said that:

Scoring points in matches is simply not the correct proxy/metric to use to gauge the success of FRC teams.

Why do you believe it is incorrect? The only reason I would ever say a metric/proxy is incorrect is if it had a small or negative correlation with the variable in which we were actually interested. In fact, I might go so far as to say that we shouldn't even use the words correct and incorrect when describing metrics. We should probably only call metrics "useful" to varying degrees. Do you think team retention is not a good metric/proxy for team success? That could be a valid argument. However, you seem to be saying OPR is a poor metric just because some might use OPR to advocate for policies you disagree with under the incorrect assumption that correlation=causation.



Let me give an alternative example:
Atmospheric CO2 levels has been pretty strongly correlated with average global temperature over the past couple hundred thousand years [1]. Thus, most would say that atmospheric CO2 measurements have been a useful (correct) proxy for global temperature. Many others though, will say that CO2 measurements are an "incorrect proxy/metric" solely because they don't want to deal with the possible implications of the correlation existing. On my linked website, it says:

While it might seem simple to determine cause and effect between carbon dioxide and climate from which change occurs first, or from some other means, the determination of cause and effect remains exceedingly difficult.

The relationship is not simple, both of these variables play off of each other, as well as interacting with thousands of others. The correlation is still strong though, which makes atmospheric CO2 levels a useful metric for global temperature.


If you disagree that OPR and team success will remain coupled if we eliminate bag day, that is a perfectly respectable position. I don't believe though that it is a respectable position to discredit useful metrics out of fear of that others might misuse the information contained within them.



[1] http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/temperature-change.html

[cbale2000]

Note, I never said that we need to have exactly a 6 week stop build date. I am not stating an opinion on whether or not to MOVE the stop date. I just don't like have NO build date at all, and being allowed to work as much as we want directly on the bot between regionals.

That is sort of a separate issue though. My response was more geared towards promoting FRC with people not familiar with it already.

All I'm saying is that if you did have unlimited access from kickoff through competition season, you could still market it as, an "8 week build season", without much impact on the reaction it elicits from newcomers.

[Taylor]

Teams with a small amount of mentors tend to have a low OPR.
Teams with a small amount of mentors tend to be victims of attrition.
Teams with low OPR tend to be victims of attrition.

Solution: Let's fix the OPR problem by allowing teams more plays and/or unbag time.

Possible result: already thin-stretched mentors get more burnout faster, and the attrition actually increases as fringe teams fall away.*

OPR is a symptom, not the disease.

Perhaps this is an example of a conflation of symptoms at which gblake and others have been hinting.

(And the small number of mentors example is one of a myriad of possible challenges teams face. Please don't take my example as a one-and-only offering.)
(Also please don't take this as an opinion of my being pro- or anti-SBD. I honestly don't know where I stand yet.)

*Paradoxically, by dropping some of the low-performing teams, the 'product' will get better and more media friendly. That's a tangent for another day (and another thread methinks)

[gblake]

You said that:
...Ah!
I thought you thought I wrote that OPR and Team Retention aren't correlated. Jim's paper shows that they are.

On the subject of whether OPR would be the useful metric to use gauging team's success, I did intend to convey that IMO the correlation between OPR and Team retention doesn't make OPR the metric to use (focus on, lead with, etc.) in conversations about whether teams are successful.

In the PS: section of another post today, I did mention the domain I prefer. It is very different from the domain containing OPR. What I wrote there was ... Something along the lines of introducing students to enough positive STEM experiences to open their eyes to the possibility that they might enjoy a STEM career. ...

[bkahl]

What I wrote there was
... Something along the lines of introducing students to enough positive STEM experiences to open their eyes to the possibility that they might enjoy a STEM career. ...



Then why not give students more time around said STEM experiences by not making them put their creation in a trash bag?

[Lireal]

Then why not give students more time around said STEM experiences by not making them put their creation in a trash bag?

Because students burnout to. If the build season was just one weej longer last year, it would have been great for our small team. But build season always hurts our grades, and adding another week of suboptimal schoolwork would have put many of the students on my team even farther behind. There are still plenty of ways to continue the stem experience, like watch week 1 competitions or preparing for competition. Extending the build season will not expamd the experience any farther than it already is, but wil insteadl negatively the students.

[Oblarg]

Because students burnout to. If the build season was just one weej longer last year, it would have been great for our small team. But build season always hurts our grades, and adding another week of suboptimal schoolwork would have put many of the students on my team even farther behind. There are still plenty of ways to continue the stem experience, like watch week 1 competitions or preparing for competition. Extending the build season will not expamd the experience any farther than it already is, but wil insteadl negatively the students.

I have yet to hear a truly convincing argument that eliminating bag day would significantly increase the amount of work most teams do.

In all of my FRC experience, I've only ever built a practice bot once, but I've worked on something or another between the end of build season and the start of competition every single year.

So, this doesn't seem to me an issue of "not increasing the workload." We might be able to reduce the workload were we to instead implement harsher restrictions on the ability of teams to work after bag day, but it is not clear to me a) how these would actually work in practice and b) whether that's actually desirable in the first place.

[bkahl]

Because students burnout to. If the build season was just one weej longer last year, it would have been great for our small team. But build season always hurts our grades, and adding another week of suboptimal schoolwork would have put many of the students on my team even farther behind. There are still plenty of ways to continue the stem experience, like watch week 1 competitions or preparing for competition. Extending the build season will not expamd the experience any farther than it already is, but wil insteadl negatively the students.

I understand your issue.

However, upon a bit more investigation I think ending SBD will actually help students to NOT burn out.

Here's why:

Lets say a students spends 5hrs/day 5 days/wk at build, that's fairly common among teams from my understanding. That would equate to 25 hours a week, and over the 6 week build season (although that in itself is a myth), would mean the student spent 150 hours of their time at robotics.

Now, lets get rid of stop build day.

The build season now becomes longer, and the robot doesn't have to be done in 6 weeks. This opens students up to not having to cram hours in during the 6 week period.

Let's decide to enter a week 2 competition. Now we have 9 weeks to prepare a robot, instead of 6.

Let's also cut down hours/day to 3.5, giving students more time to focus on homework, or other activities they may want to participate in.

3.5hrs/day and 5 days/wk is 17.5 hours/wk, 7.5hrs/wk less than the current schedule.

Now for the cool stuff!

17.5hrs/wk over 9 weeks is 157.5 hours total spent on the robot!

By actually saving more hours a week and allowing us to spread the time out further, we have actually prevented burn out, AND spent more time on the robot.

Morale of the story: By removing SBD, it does not require you to work your same schedule for longer weeks. It allows you to better manage your time spent on the robot, prevent burnout, and potentially create a better machine.

[efoote868]

I have yet to hear a truly convincing argument that eliminating bag day would significantly increase the amount of work most teams do.
I will give you an example using my team's numbers:

My team has about 120 students. During the build season, they're required to meet 3 hours per day, every day, after school to be considered on the team. Keeping all students occupied and out of trouble is a huge undertaking in itself.

After stop build day, there are about 20 dedicated students that will continue to meet or work on robotics, but the work is infrequent and not mandatory for everyone.

If stop build day is removed and our build season is extended, I doubt we'd keep a "team-only" stop build date. Our build season would be extended just like everyone else's, and that would significantly increase the amount of work - 300 student hours / day. Those 300 hours could be spent on schoolwork, athletics, jobs, other activities.

Not to mention, the school's coach of the robotics team is compensated extra the same as an assistant cheerleader coach. If the build season is extended any longer, we would have a very hard time finding teachers to sponsor the team.

Other than the size of my robotics team, I don't think my team is unique in how it would treat no stop build date.

[jman4747]

Then why not give students more time around said STEM experiences by not making them put their creation in a trash bag?

This is one of my least favorite things from being a student to a mentor. As a student it's annoying to have the reason you want to be there cut off for no apparent reason. It is less fun and it never did anything for me. As a mentor it sucks that all this extra time I could spend doing more hands on teaching work is wasted right when the students are most engaged with the program.

The most effective time to teach is when we are building the robot. The most effective teaching tool I have gets locked when it is most effective.


Also since it's very contested...

The mentor burnout thing makes no sense to me in the context of pro vs anti bag.

Why not meet less often?

My anecdote:

We have 7 people who regularly help us with technical roles. 5 full time workers, one collage student (me), one retiree. None of us get burnt out because we spent X total hours working. We get bunt out if we spend long hours day after day taking up most of a week and don't get time for other things during said time frame. I could work on robots twice a week for months and never burn out but 5 to 6 days a week for two weeks is really hard.

The only thing we actually need is consistent commitment from key mentors. The bag day is what forces that to be 2-4 days a week then 5-6 when something inevitably goes wrong in the late game. Why can't we just spread out our work the way that works best for our team? Why can't you just set your own schedule, stick to it so you don't burn out, and let us do what makes us more sustainable?

Stuffing all the work in to a shorter time frame is worse for burnout and hurts our team.

EDIT:
I understand your issue.

However, upon a bit more investigation I think ending SBD will actually help students to NOT burn out.

Here's why:

Lets say a students spends 5hrs/day 5 days/wk at build, that's fairly common among teams from my understanding. That would equate to 25 hours a week, and over the 6 week build season (although that in itself is a myth), would mean the student spent 150 hours of their time at robotics.

Now, lets get rid of stop build day.

The build season now becomes longer, and the robot doesn't have to be done in 6 weeks. This opens students up to not having to cram hours in during the 6 week period.

Let's decide to enter a week 2 competition. Now we have 9 weeks to prepare a robot, instead of 6.

Let's also cut down hours/day to 3.5, giving students more time to focus on homework, or other activities they may want to participate in.

3.5hrs/day and 5 days/wk is 17.5 hours/wk, 7.5hrs/wk less than the current schedule.

Now for the cool stuff!

17.5hrs/wk over 9 weeks is 157.5 hours total spent on the robot!

By actually saving more hours a week and allowing us to spread the time out further, we have actually prevented burn out, AND spent more time on the robot.

Morale of the story: By removing SBD, it does not require you to work your same schedule for longer weeks. It allows you to better manage your time spent on the robot, prevent burnout, and potentially create a better machine.

Thank you.

[Oblarg]

If stop build day is removed and our build season is extended, I doubt we'd keep a "team-only" stop build date.

Why, though? It's not as if, even in the absence of the resources to build a second robot, there's a dearth of things to work on between bag day and competition. Your team is already making a choice to arbitrarily cease work on a certain date - why would the removal of the bag requirement force you to change that policy?

Re: mentor burnout, the worst burnout I've ever experienced was scrambling in 2014 to build a practice bot from scratch over spring break so that we could test our code on an actual robot, which we had not been able to do before bag day. (In addition to costing me my mental and physical health, this cost several team parents quite a bit of money out-of-pocket). This would not have happened in the absence of bag day. So, the notion that removing bag day would help me, as a mentor, to not burn out is flatly inconsistent with my experience.

[efoote868]

Why, though? It's not as if, even in the absence of the resources to build a second robot, there's a dearth of things to work on between bag day and competition. Your team is already making a choice to arbitrarily cease work on a certain date - why would the removal of the bag requirement force you to change that policy?

Can you understand the difference between FIRST telling a student they must stop working on their robot on a certain day and a mentor telling a student they must stop working on their robot on a certain day?

The perspective is, "I think that rule is stupid!" versus, "I think that mentor is mean!"



Now for the cool stuff!

17.5hrs/wk over 9 weeks is 157.5 hours total spent on the robot!

By actually saving more hours a week and allowing us to spread the time out further, we have actually prevented burn out, AND spent more time on the robot.

Morale of the story: By removing SBD, it does not require you to work your same schedule for longer weeks. It allows you to better manage your time spent on the robot, prevent burnout, and potentially create a better machine.

Robotics and sports practice do not mix. Robotics and after school jobs do not mix. Robotics and after school activities do not mix. Any day spent after school on robotics is a day that can't be used elsewhere, and increasing the number of days spent on robotics decreases the number of days spent doing other things.

That will cause burnout.

[Oblarg]

Can you understand the difference between FIRST telling a student they must stop working on their robot on a certain day and a mentor telling a student they must stop working on their robot on a certain day?

The perspective is, "I think that rule is stupid!" versus, "I think that mentor is mean!"

FIRST doesn't tell students that they must stop working on a certain day, they tell students that the robot must be placed in a bag on a certain day. The two are extremely different, and almost all of the students I've ever worked with have felt the same.

[jimbo493]

Just saying that you have more than 6 weeks for build, and it's easier to explain to people that we get 6 weeks, rather than 45.5 days. It's 3.5 days that you are saying make not a 6 week season, but when rounded to the nearest week, it is in fact 6 weeks.


EDIT: Realized that I was only on page 11 of 16....why is this so long?

[bkahl]

Robotics and sports practice do not mix. Robotics and after school jobs do not mix. Robotics and after school activities do not mix. Any day spent after school on robotics is a day that can't be used elsewhere, and increasing the number of days spent on robotics decreases the number of days spent doing other things.

That will cause burnout.

Okay! Cool!

Lets do some more anecdotal math using the same starting numbers.

5hrs/day, 5days/wk, 6 weeks = 150 hours

4.5hrs/day, 4days/wk, 9 weeks = 162 hours

We have cut a little bit of time each day, and an entire day each week! AND WE HAVE SPENT MORE HOURS ON OUR ROBOT! :ahh:

[notmattlythgoe]

Robotics and sports practice do not mix. Robotics and after school jobs do not mix. Robotics and after school activities do not mix. Any day spent after school on robotics is a day that can't be used elsewhere, and increasing the number of days spent on robotics decreases the number of days spent doing other things.

That will cause burnout.

Trying to do robotics and too many other sports/clubs/activities will cause burnout no matter if SBD exists or not.

[Jon Stratis]

Parkinson's Law: work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion

ending stop build day would not necessarily mean you spread the same amount of time over a longer period. It could easily mean that you expand your work to try to accomplish more stuff, increasing the overall amount of time spent at robotics.

If FIRST did away with stop build day, there'd be no way for them to prevent that. However, we can, as a community, make an effort to shape our overall expectations towards the goal of tapering off work after 6 weeks. There's been some discussion, should stop build day go away, about the possibility of "week-0" events happening any time between week-0 and your competition. If we make a concerted effort, across all of FIRST, to keep week-0 events on week-0, then that could provide the impulse to get the robot done in 6 weeks, get some testing in at an event, then spend the rest of the time before your event on improvements or fixes for issues. But if you wait until right before your week 6 event to go to a "week-0" event, then that doesn't really happen. Instead, you've just expanded your work to fill 11 weeks instead of 6.

[Alyssa]

Robotics and sports practice do not mix. Robotics and after school jobs do not mix. Robotics and after school activities do not mix. Any day spent after school on robotics is a day that can't be used elsewhere, and increasing the number of days spent on robotics decreases the number of days spent doing other things.



The dedicated students and mentors on my team all either have varsity sports (myself and about 80% of our leadership team) or jobs that go until 5. We all put in over 300 in a 6 week build season. Please don't argue that robotics and sports don't mix.

[Oblarg]

However, we can, as a community, make an effort to shape our overall expectations towards the goal of tapering off work after 6 weeks.

I've yet to hear any suggestion for an enforceable policy that would result in teams not being able to gainfully work after bag day, especially one that would not be far harder to bypass for low-resource teams than for high-resource teams (which is the fundamental problem with bag day as it currently exists, in my mind).

[efoote868]

Okay! Cool!

Lets do some more anecdotal math using the same starting numbers.

5hrs/day, 5days/wk, 6 weeks = 150 hours

4.5hrs/day, 4days/wk, 9 weeks = 162 hours

We have cut a little bit of time each day, and an entire day each week! AND WE HAVE SPENT MORE HOURS ON OUR ROBOT! :ahh:

Good luck finding a high school sports team that will let a student practice only 1 day / week, or a job that lets a student work only 1 shift / week...

[jman4747]

Robotics and sports practice do not mix. Robotics and after school jobs do not mix. Robotics and after school activities do not mix. Any day spent after school on robotics is a day that can't be used elsewhere, and increasing the number of days spent on robotics decreases the number of days spent doing other things.

That will cause burnout.

Then meet fewer days a week for more hours per day over a more weeks.

Or just do ~"45" days like you would otherwise...

[Alyssa]

Good luck finding a high school sports team that will let a student practice only 1 day / week, or a job that lets a student work only 1 shift / week...

Again, I had 2.5 hour long varsity sports every school day in high school, showered and went to robotics afterwards from about 5:30 to 10:30. Your logic is completely flawed.

[bkahl]

Good luck finding a high school sports team that will let a student practice only 1 day / week, or a job that lets a student work only 1 shift / week...

WOah, what calendar are you looking at?

7-4=1?!?!?!?!?!

[Jon Stratis]

I've yet to hear any suggestion for an enforceable policy that would result in teams not being able to gainfully work after bag day, especially one that would not be far harder to bypass for low-resource teams than for high-resource teams (which is the fundamental problem with bag day as it currently exists, in my mind).

No, teams can continue to work after stop build... but the fact that you have the robot in a bag means that very, very many, if not most, teams take a break after bagging the robot, and the level of work significantly decreases. Take away the bag, and you risk losing that - That's kind of the whole point of my post. Create an incentive for teams to finish their robot early and many will, which will by definition help to decrease the load after that point.

[efoote868]

The dedicated students and mentors on my team all either have varsity sports (myself and about 80% of our leadership team) or jobs that go until 5. We all put in over 300 in a 6 week build season. Please don't argue that robotics and sports don't mix.

Not every robotics team is setup the same way, in the same way that not every track and field, baseball, tennis or golf team is the same. Conflicts will vary by school and by team, but having a short build season lets students pursue other activities.