Collaborations

[hayakuneko]

So it seems as though its no big surprise that teams have started collaborating on designs. My one questions is: Why does the collaboration start? Does it have to do with a lack of mentors, students, or resources on a team? It seems as though having a collaboration with another successful team can lead to success, just look at 968/254, 980/4, and I think 60 collaborated with someone from the east. Well yeah, I was just wondering what the reason for starting a collaboration is.

[sanddrag]

I think one main reason is that is is easier to build 4 of one part than 2 each of two different parts. But there are a lot of drawbacks to it too. It is a tough deal to organize. But I would like to hear from the "insiders" on these collaboration efforts and hear why they did it and if it turned out as expected. I'm wondering if it is something we need to try one day.

[Beth Sweet]

This thread (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44797&highlight=niagara) details quite a bit about why the Triplets do it. I think that Karthik phrases his reasons well.

[jDee_shaRpie]

Im on Team 4 and I Used to be 22. I think a lot of collaborations start out with your connections and your ability to walk up to a team and just ask if they want to work together. I was sitting at a table with Ms. Wendy Wooten at a restaurant our team ate at last year after a post ship competition(i dont remember where, probably battle at the border) and 980, walked up to us and said that they would like to collaborate. We originally planned to collaborate with our close friends from Canada, Team 188 Woburn Robotics, but honestly idk what happen that. So anyways our teams exchanged informationa and got together i think the day after Kick off to start talking on weather or not we should collaboratem we decided we would, because they have good engineers and we have the ability to transform our final designs into a fully functional robot. I personally think we planned to much this year, thats why we didnt really finish our bot.

[AndyB]

i dont really know what you mean by collaborate (designing or building) but we collaborated designs with watertown, wi (1753) because it was their rookie year and needed someone to show them the ropes.

[Madison]

i dont really know what you mean by collaborate (designing or building) but we collaborated designs with watertown, wi (1753) because it was their rookie year and needed someone to show them the ropes.

Typically, these discussions are about teams that have worked together to, as a single unit, design and build nearly identical robots.

[Lil' Lavery]

i dont really know what you mean by collaborate (designing or building) but we collaborated designs with watertown, wi (1753) because it was their rookie year and needed someone to show them the ropes.
That sounds a bit more like mentoring than collaborating. Collaboration typically refers to when multiple teams share designs, help manufacture parts for eachother, and the like (each team involved doing roughly equivalent amount of work). Examples include the NiagaraFIRST triplets (1114, 1503, and 1680), 980/4, 254/968, and past relationships such as 217/229 and 254/22.

[Jon Jack]

From the looks of Team 60, they too are part of the 968/254 collaboration.

[sanddrag]

From the looks of Team 60, they too are part of the 968/254 collaboration.
Not true at all. The only commonality is that the three of them share the same wheel design. However, 60 collaborated with 254 in 2004 and I believe it was the first instance of such a thing.

[Billfred]

Not true at all. However, 60 collaborated with 254 in 2004 and I believe it was the first instance of such a thing.
I can't back this up with anything, but I recall hearing at some point on CD of two teams in 2003 did such a thing. Their relative ineffectiveness on the field, however, kept them from making too many waves.

[Cory]

I can't back this up with anything, but I recall hearing at some point on CD of two teams in 2003 did such a thing. Their relative ineffectiveness on the field, however, kept them from making too many waves.

Two rookies (one may have been a 2nd or 3rd year team) who attended the Sacramento Regional in 2003 collaborated and designed the same robot.

[SpaceOsc]

I can't back this up with anything, but I recall hearing at some point on CD of two teams in 2003 did such a thing. Their relative ineffectiveness on the field, however, kept them from making too many waves.

60 2003 and 254 2003 shared ideas but didnt develop the same robot so no one noticed

(Notice the lil ramp clamps)
http://nolanpro.com/audri/P4110005.jpg
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/img/c66/c6692157197c0f1a0325ca753f1c8102_l.jpg

[Stephen Kowski]

the disney teams have been collaborating with their teams to some extent since 2002 (that's as far back as i can remember), though from what I remember they weren't identical, but looking at them you would think they were seperated at birth...945 and 665 were two of those teams if my memory serves me....from what i was told both teams were lacking in the funds dept and disney had them collaborate, but don't quote me on that :cool:

edit: wow i can actually remember things accurately, check out the photos
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/13702 - 665
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/13708 - 945

as usual you can credit a florida team for the innovation :p

[Jon Jack]

Not true at all. The only commonality is that the three of them share the same wheel design.

Doesn't 60 and 254 share the same transmission design as well. From the pictures I've seen of both robots 4, 60, 254, 968 and 980 use the same transmission design.

[Travis Covington]

The 254/968 tranny is new for this year. It uses dogs to shift instead of meshing gears.

I am pretty sure that the 4/980/60 tranny is the same one 22/254/60 used last year.

[Avarik]

Collaborations generally start due to team relations. The 22/254 collaboration began because one of our students contacted 254/60 about their drive train. over the summer, 254/22 worked together to work out some kinks. We originally planned to just collaborate on the drive train, but a few days after kickoff, we just seemed to kinda decide that a full collaboration was most efficient for all.

I feel that there are many advantages to collaborations. Just take a look the 968/254 bot - it's got 3 regional wins under its belt already!

[nuggetsyl]

Our team was thinking about it and we asked a few others if they wanted to but everyone we talked to was not interested in the idea. It takes us soooooo long to build a robot anyway working with another team might be tough. Ex this year we only had 2 days to program. Because the machine was not working up to our specs.

shaun

[Mr. Van]

I feel that there are many advantages to collaborations. Just take a look the 968/254 bot - it's got 3 regional wins under its belt already!
While there are many reasons to collaborate, I hope that the primary one is to Inspire students.

It seems to me that many of the teams that collaborate are already very capable teams that have very, very effective programs. At the time of their collaboration, 254 & 60 had each already won many regionals on their own. The same could be said for 22 & 254 last year. This year, the trend seems to continue.

To the teams that have collaborated: Has the collaboration improved your ability to engage and inspire students?

-Mr. Van
Coach, 599

[Travis Covington]

To the teams that have collaborated: Has the collaboration improved your ability to engage and inspire students?

-Mr. Van
Coach, 599

That was the goal. Being that we only really have a few college mentors, and one teacher, any free time we have where we aren't designing and running around getting parts made means more time we can spend with the students. Unfortunately, it didn't work out quite as well as we had hoped, but I still feel like it gave us a little more free time than we had in the past to spend with the students, engaging them and teaching them more about how the engineering process works. I'd like to think the students had a little more of our time this year than in years past, but I'll let them answer that.

[kiettyyyy]

That was the goal. Being that we only really have a few college mentors, and one teacher, any free time we have where we aren't designing and running around getting parts made means more time we can spend with the students. Unfortunately, it didn't work out quite as well as we had hoped, but I still feel like it gave us a little more free time than we had in the past to spend with the students, engaging them and teaching them more about how the engineering process works. I'd like to think the students had a little more of our time this year than in years past, but I'll let them answer that.
See, I learned about how potentiometers worked along with lots of other electrical stuff that travis showed me :o AND I LEARNED HOW TO SOLDER!!! and lots more :) great season!

[Rick TYler]

OK, I know it's thread drift, but you can also see strong influence from a leading team in an area in the designs of other teams. For example, Washington teams are nearly all 6WD, and at least four of them used 9x2 BeadLoks this year. I assume all of these teams were influenced by 492, a multiple regional winner who is more than willing to help anyone with anything. The Bellevue practice event especially showed the influence of Titan Robotics. We weren't all clones, but you could see some genetic influence (except the X- Bots -- Madison has been doing FIRST for a long time, and shows a distinctive East-coast influence).

[sanddrag]

We have never collaborated with anyone but we'd be open to any flattering offers. :D However, in 2003, team 498 took great interest in our simple but very effective drive system and we explained it in great detail to them. We were happy to see a nearly identical version on their robot in 2004.

[SpaceOsc]

OK, I know it's thread drift, but you can also see strong influence from a leading team in an area in the designs of other teams. For example, Washington teams are nearly all 6WD, and at least four of them used 9x2 BeadLoks this year. I assume all of these teams were influenced by 492, a multiple regional winner who is more than willing to help anyone with anything. The Bellevue practice event especially showed the influence of Titan Robotics. We weren't all clones, but you could see some genetic influence (except the X- Bots -- Madison has been doing FIRST for a long time, and shows a distinctive East-coast influence).

First no longer works in regional basis nor a state basis, its national if not yet global. the 6wd trend follows the path of previous trends like crab drives, omni wheels, wedge top tread. and mageneum wheels where 1 -5 teams figure out these nice new useful technologies and the following years u see more and more common teams using them as it becomes more accessible mainly thru companies that offer ready made parts like AndyMark, IFI, and FIRST. just notice the KitBOT frame... its ideal for 6WD since it has the center holes at a 1/8 lower offset. This 6WD craze was long over due.

[Drew]

What are they, You have been seeing them all over the competitions. Numerous bots that are exactly the same in everyway but one or two zip ties... Why is this, It kind of seems unfair. There is no creativity in these bots but the original designs. Its almost like, We cant figure out how to do this game so lets wait until another team gets an idea and let them give us the fabrication idea's parts, and help. Yea it is good to be gratious professionals and share your ideas and help other teams, but its like were here for a learning experiance and in the real world when you start designing your own products lets see how many companies will just come along and let you completly replicate your product. Now im sorry if i am seeming angry or mean but i tell you that i am not. Im just curious if there is a reason for this, its just weird seeing this sudden boom of replicated robots. If thats all we had to do then why didnt someone inform us, we could have join up with a diffrent team. do you or anyone else think that there may be a rule against clone bots, like a patented robot, If you make it no one else can copy to exact specification. Even though that is getting a little to extreme. the only good part i saw on this topic is once you find the weak points to the robot you know the weak points to the others also. so in terms the outcome can become good and bad... i guess it all just really comes down to autonomous and the programmer, just like always.... Blame the programmer

[themagic8ball]

Well a lot of the duplicate robots come from sister teams. I know two teams that came into Milwaukee with the same exact robot and I personally thought it was unfair. Its like basically taking one team, registering as 2, building 2 robots to bring to competition and if one breaks you have twice as much allowance of spare parts not to mention another whole robot worth of parts.

[dhitchco]

What are they, You have been seeing them all over the competitions. Numerous bots that are exactly the same in everyway but one or two zip ties... Why is this, It kind of seems unfair. There is no creativity in these bots but the original designs......Now im sorry if i am seeming angry or mean but i tell you that i am not. Im just curious .....

Hey Drew,
I've been doing our team's photo/video at two regionals thus far (Finger Lakes & Boston) and agree that there are some robots with "similar" designs. I've been especially impressed with those bots that use vertical corkscrew ball elevators.

Since FIRST is really NOT a corporate-spying event, I fully embrace idea-sharing and design-stealing. It's not the bot itself that will win, it's much more in the learning process as well as the inter-team alliance-selection process.

So, even if there was 100 identical robots, I'll bet you than one of those teams will forget a zip-tie and their battery will die, or one of them will get pinned, etc.

So, let the designs fall-out where they may. In fact, I'd love to see a design book each year outlining the major "themes" of designs (e.g sweepers, elevators, corkscrews, 2-ball shooters, etc)

[thoughtful]

First of all this topic has been discussed all around CD.

I dont know about many cloned teams, but i know of the Triplets from Niagara FIRST. They collaborate on they collaborate on everything but the competition(meaning once they are on the field they will all play their hearts out). 1114 in 2005 took two other teams under their wing in order to promote FIRST in a region where they were the lone team. On the field they are a very GP team and matches between triplets are always fun. I dont see anything wrong with this. Although they might gain some advantages, it takes a lot of effort and energy to manage one team let alone work together with three. Many first teams might have to do this in the future in order to cope with lower fund raising money and human capital.

[Drew]

yea we also build a duplicate robot so we have a spare change of parts for everything. We could as well give our robot to a seprate team and they would be off and going, but we dont because its for change of parts because defiantly we loose parts every competition. I agree in the fact that the unfairity of the situation remains high because the teams pair up at the end, while one being very good on its own to score 40+ points per game they are stoppable but with 2 and 3 on the same alliance with one on defense and the other two scoring 100+ scores come with a breeze potentally owning the competition.. seems kind of unfortunate but it's something that cant be changed, its not too big of a problem though

[Tristan Lall]

First, read the rules.

That should be the first step in any FIRST endeavour. In fact, the rules don't prohibit the exchange of designs. And if a team decides that it will release its design to the FIRST community at large, what's unfair about making use of it? And further, if two or more teams decide that they want to use similar designs, once again, the rules do not prohibit it.

More to the point, I suspect, you've offered very shaky justification for your position—you imply that teams "cant figure out how to do this game so lets wait until another team gets an idea and let them give us the fabrication idea's parts, and help [sic]". Maybe for the most complacent of teams, that's the case. But for most of the collaborative designs that I've come across, the design is the result of a partnership, and not of one team doing all the work while its partners merely clone the end result.

Also, the analogy of a business is not appropriate, because it a FIRST team will often want to allow you access to their design. In business, that sort of thing is the exception; in FIRST it is commonplace. For this reason, you can't expect that a team will necessarily attempt to protect its designs, as if they were the trade secrets of a business. (In some cases, teams keep designs secret to maintain a competitive advantage; in others, they give freely. There is no rule on this matter either.)

It's insane to consider it unfair, since neither you nor anyone else has been wronged, and the neither the rules nor the unwritten conventions have been breached.

[Don Wright]

Hey Drew,
I've been doing our team's photo/video at two regionals thus far (Finger Lakes & Boston) and agree that there are some robots with "similar" designs.

It goes further than similiar... Just look around on CD for a few minutes...

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/img/46a/46adf23b7b960593d79b2ad4dfe8a45e_l.jpg

[Drew]

First of all this topic has been discussed all around CD.

I dont know about many cloned teams, but i know of the Triplets from Niagara FIRST. They collaborate on they collaborate on everything but the competition(meaning once they are on the field they will all play their hearts out). 1114 in 2005 took two other teams under their wing in order to promote FIRST in a region where they were the lone team. On the field they are a very GP team and matches between triplets are always fun. I dont see anything wrong with this. Although they might gain some advantages, it takes a lot of effort and energy to manage one team let alone work together with three. Many first teams might have to do this in the future in order to cope with lower fund raising money and human capital.


this being the only good thing that i can see with the topic, im not trying to criticize the topic of sister teams because its a great thing to help out a team but why with identical robotics, Why not help them design their own idea instead of guiding them twords an alike competition. It always excites me at competitions when new robots come forth and i like to see their designs, it really shows how critically they were thinking to the point that even a wooden robot can win a competition. Its not exactly how good the robot is its how good you compete with it thats what wins the hearts of people. you try, try, try again. Although i love seeing teams that may be rookies or newer teams up there at the top of the rankings i would feel so much more accomplished if i said We built it, We competed, We conquered. rather than, they built it (helped us with the idea) we competed, we conquered (with their help). it does show great enthusiasm on GP and chairmans awards

[viking1902]

This topic is a bit controversial. Another thread discussing this can be found here. (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44797)

[Drew]

First, read the rules.

That should be the first step in any FIRST endeavour. In fact, the rules don't prohibit the exchange of designs. And if a team decides that it will release its design to the FIRST community at large, what's unfair about making use of it? And further, if two or more teams decide that they want to use similar designs, once again, the rules do not prohibit it.

More to the point, I suspect, you've offered very shaky justification for your position—you imply that teams "cant figure out how to do this game so lets wait until another team gets an idea and let them give us the fabrication idea's parts, and help [sic]". Maybe for the most complacent of teams, that's the case. But for most of the collaborative designs that I've come across, the design is the result of a partnership, and not of one team doing all the work while its partners merely clone the end result.

Also, the analogy of a business is not appropriate, because it a FIRST team will often want to allow you access to their design. In business, that sort of thing is the exception; in FIRST it is commonplace. For this reason, you can't expect that a team will necessarily attempt to protect its designs, as if they were the trade secrets of a business. (In some cases, teams keep designs secret to maintain a competitive advantage; in others, they give freely. There is no rule on this matter either.)


i made sure that I implied that no rules were being broken because i know for a fact that none were. But definatly I agree with almost everything you say and i am not taking away anything that these teams have done i kinda feel that what i said now may have resulted with many diffrent range of emotions. I myself just love to see what teams can do on their own with or without the guidance of another team. You all have helped me come to understand how this is a good thing but maybe bad or unfair at times. I dont disagree with anything though.

[Collin Fultz]

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45879&highlight=collaboration
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44797&highlight=collaboration
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36004&highlight=collaboration

can we close this?

[Stuart]

the only ones who are hurt by this is the teams that collaborate. . how inspirational can it be to not build and design your own robot . . I dont think that its against the rules or should be illegal . . but if you want to build the same robot as another team why not save the 6k registration and just join up with that team?

anyway thats my take on it

[Drew]

[QUOTE=Don Wright]It goes further than similiar... Just look around on CD for a few minutes...
QUOTE]


undoubtably it does go further than similiar because the teams from canada.... (sorry if im not precise because i dont know the numbers off hand) somewhere in the thousands have three or four identical robots.

[Drew]

the only ones who are hurt by this is the teams that collaborate. . how inspirational can it be to not build and design your own robot . . I dont think that its against the rules or should be illegal . . but if you want to build the same robot as another team why not save the 6k registration and just join up with that team?

anyway thats my take on it

definatly i agree

[Tetraman]

I enjoyed the "Division by Chicken" project that Division by Zero and the Thunder Chickens did last year...they took a similar path, but both robots were different. If more teams did that, it would be nice because you get more team on team interaction beyond the competition.

The teams that do this might have their own reasons. It could be that the mother team makes a design and the sister or rookie team builds off of that design to help get them into how to actually build a robot when it comes to next year.

It gets your team noticed too. If it wasn't this big of a hoo-ha I'd see if our team could team up with another team.

[Katie Reynolds]

There is no creativity in these bots but the original designs. Its almost like, We cant figure out how to do this game so lets wait until another team gets an idea and let them give us the fabrication idea's parts, and help.It's unfair to assume that teams with brother/sister/clone bots just couldn't figure out what they wanted to do, so they jumped onboard with a team that did. Do you know how the NiagraFIRST (http://niagarafirst.org/index.php) teams collaborate? How about the backstory of teams #70 and #494?

At the Milwaukee regional, I was curious about these two teams, as 70 was a pretty low number and I'd never heard of the "More Martians" before. So I asked a mentor for the teams about it and he filled me in. Bottom line: the Martians (494) did a pretty cool thing for a fellow team at their high school that was going under.
Why is this, It kind of seems unfair.Dean Kamen has said it numerous times - FIRST isn't supposed to be "fair".
It isn't "fair" that Team XXX has a $100,000 budget, while Team YYY has $7,000 and Team ZZZ has $35,000.
It isn't "fair" that Team XXX has a full machine shop at their disposal, while Team YYY has only handtools and a bansaw and Team ZZZ has only a machine shop to make parts for them - that they can't use.
It isn't "fair" that Team XXX has 25 professional engineers and 15 high school students, while Team YYY has 30 high school students and 10 college mentors, and Team ZZZ has 5 professional mentors, 5 parents and 10 students.
It isn't "fair" that the professionals on Team XXX build the robot, while the college students on Team YYY build theres, and the students on Team ZZZ do all their team's work.

But that's the way FIRST is supposed to work - as a microcosm of the "real world", and in the real world things aren't always fair. That's part of the challenge.

how inspirational can it be to not build and design your own robot Who's to say what inspires someone and what doesn't? I could only be inspired by watching someone build a robot, while you could only be inspired by building it yourself. I could be inspired by playing music, while you could be inspired by listening to it. Inspiration is a funny thing, because people become inspired about the same things, in totally opposite ways.

I think everyone who's questioning these teams should talk to them about how they went through the design and fabrication process - you might just learn something yourself.

[Conor Ryan]

I recommend this for the Moderated Forum before it gets sticky

Ahh, The great collaborative design debate. Heres my 2 cents,

I don't see anything wrong with collaborative design? Why because all of the efforts that I've seen made are not all done by one team, its team work. Both teams come together and pool resources and build not one, but two robots, that tend to be very similar. Don't look at this as many people do, with one team leeching off of the other, the simple way to explain how it works is 2 heads are better than one. If you combine two teams you get a lot of benefits, double the mentors, double the resources, double the experience, pretty much a doubled team.

When one team meshes with another team and they can help each side's weaknesses, say one team has really strong programming but a weak electrical team, and another teams has strong electrical but weak programming, they come together and both end up with strong electrical and strong programming.

Never assume that when two (or even three) teams have a collaborative design that one team does all the work and the other two (or three) just sit around waiting to assemble their own. "Stock" Robots are the biggest misconception, these teams didn't get their designs from anywhere, they still came up with them on their own like any other team, the only difference is they worked on the project with another team.

[Tim Delles]

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45879&highlight=collaboration
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44797&highlight=collaboration
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36004&highlight=collaboration

can we close this?


Okay their have been numerous threads relating to teams collobration on robots. Thier have been teams for what I think 3 or 4 years now that collobrate. This topic has been beat dead twice that i know of already. So lets close it up.

[Katie Reynolds]

I'm merging "sister bots... Brother Bots.. Clone bots..???" with "Collaborations" since they're both new.

[Collin Fultz]

At the Milwaukee regional, I was curious about these two teams, as 70 was a pretty low number and I'd never heard of the "More Martians" before. So I asked a mentor for the teams about it and he filled me in. Bottom line: the Martians (494) did a pretty cool thing for a fellow team at their high school that was going under.

Actually, wasn't it that the mentors and students felt that the team got too big to accomplish their goals and inspire students the way they wanted to so they split into two teams? In order to prevent confusion as a "rookie" (since it is the same school/corporation sponsorship) they were given a low number that is no longer used.

As for how they did it, what I understood was that they had a single common design, but built the robot totally separately as two separate team. At least, this is what the lady in the pit for Team 70 told me in Cleveland.

[DjAlamose]

Actually, wasn't it that the mentors and students felt that the team got too big to accomplish their goals and inspire students the way they wanted to so they split into two teams? In order to prevent confusion as a "rookie" (since it is the same school/corporation sponsorship) they were given a low number that is no longer used.

As for how they did it, what I understood was that they had a single common design, but built the robot totally separately as two separate team. At least, this is what the lady in the pit for Team 70 told me in Cleveland.
Not so sure on that one

From what I have learned, team 70 was almost on the verge of becoming non existent. The Martians stepped in to help them out. I also believe that a new sponsor was found for them, but the original school remained (causing the name change). This is form what I have learned, do not quote me on it, I’m not 100% sure.

Also, looking at the robots it has to be a collaborative effort, they are the exact same robot. I don't mind it at all but, They just have to be the exact same robot (look a few post to see a pic of them)

But seriously, this is a dead topic. Its been discussed over and over. But I can't help but add my 2 cents.

Team 9998 and 9999 are in a collaboration:
Team 9998 has 10 mentors and 30 students with a well off team and plent of funding.
Team 9999 has 1 Teachers, 10 students and is sponsored by a local company with not much help.

This is usually where these collaborations stem from. It is NOT to have a better design and it is not all about winning the competition. It is about helping another team with less fortunate circumstances learn more about engineering and technology than they would have on their own.

the reason we collaborate is not to build a better robot. Trust me, we'd be better off build a single bot. The reason we collaborate, is because it's the most efficient way to get more students exposed to FIRST. We simply don't have the resources, sponsors and mentors to support 3 separate FRC teams in our area.
As Karthik said, they would be better off not collaborating. They only do this inspire more people about FIRST and its message. With the Martians, I can see that they did the same thing, helping team 70 who was reformed become a stronger team by helping them through the process and showing them how it can be done. Remember, FIRST is not about the competition, it is about inspiring young people to peruse careers in Engineering, Science and Technology. The competition is just a perk and a way of seeing your work in action. Put inspiration before competition.

[Katie Reynolds]

Actually, wasn't it that the mentors and students felt that the team got too big to accomplish their goals and inspire students the way they wanted to so they split into two teams? In order to prevent confusion as a "rookie" (since it is the same school/corporation sponsorship) they were given a low number that is no longer used.

As for how they did it, what I understood was that they had a single common design, but built the robot totally separately as two separate team. At least, this is what the lady in the pit for Team 70 told me in Cleveland.From what the mentor who talked to me said, Teams 70 and 494 are from the same high school, and Team 70 was losing their sponsorship and was "going down". Team 494 stepped in and adopted them, and helped them out. The two teams worked together and created one design that both teams, seperately, made a reality.

On their FIRST page, it says Team 70's rookie year as 1998 - as far as I know, FIRST has never reassigned old numbers. Can anyone confirm this?

[DjAlamose]

From what the mentor who talked to me said, Teams 70 and 494 are from the same high school, and Team 70 was losing their sponsorship and was "going down". Team 494 stepped in and adopted them, and helped them out. The two teams worked together and created one design that both teams, seperately, made a reality.

On their FIRST page, it says Team 70's rookie year as 1998 - as far as I know, FIRST has never reassigned old numbers. Can anyone confirm this?
I dont know the exact year but they stoped reusing numbers about 10 years ago. The only way a team get get a low number is if it allready has that number. They will not reassign a number. This way the veterans can keep better track of famous teams and we can see who the rookies are.

[David Brinza]

...as far as I know, FIRST has never reassigned old numbers. Can anyone confirm this?
I don't know whether there was a "Team 4" in the distant past, but High Tech High got that number this year. The past couple of years, High Tech High was Team 22, having moved from Chatsworth High. This year Chatsworth revived their team, so High Tech High had to register under a different number. Since High Tech High was clearly not a rookie team, FIRST allowed High Tech High to select an unused (or retired) team number. As sure as 2+2=4, Team 4 was selected.

As many know, there is a collaboration between Team 980 and Team 4 this year. Team 980 lost it's space to build robots and graduated or otherwise lost several key student members. Team 4 has excellent space, some very nice machine shop facilities and an army of eager students. Since Team 980 was "mentor-rich" and Team 4 needed engineering mentors, the fit seems natural. The collaboration has worked very well, as witnessed in the SoCal regional. The Team 4 students have learned a great deal about designs, problem-solving and exploring trade space guided by the Team 980 engineers. Those who might have stopped by the Team 980 and Team 4 pits last weekend, would have seen Team 4 students working furiously on their robot, with the Team 980 mentors close at hand to provide advice and tools.