In the spirit of FIRST fairness is one of the main goals hence limitations on robot size, weight, and price; so that competition is not only challenging but fun at the same time.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

And, ahem, a World Championship? I guess you succeeded at avoiding bragging...

Building a practice robot is hardly not in the spirit of FIRST. FIRST says nothing about making yourself less competitive because you know there are those out there who can't/don't do the same things to help themselves out. FRC is about keeping a high level of competition while helping other teams do the same. The competition is the tool to inspire students in STEM.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

Seriously?
If you think practice bots are immoral you must think FiM is Gomorrah.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

FIRST is a pretty decent microcosm of real life,

those who work hard, accomplish more

decent lesson to learn, and FIRST is allowing us to learn it.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

If teams bothered to come out of the pits. Thursday is often Extra Eight Hours of Desperate Build Time Day to finish their still incomplete robot.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

Guys,
This subject is brought up every year and the same answers are usually given. While winning is a great thing, let's not loose sight of what the competition is actually attempting. We are here to inspire students. The rest is all just fluff compared to improving someone's life, setting someone on a path, or getting someone to recognize high school education is simply not enough in today's world. We know that added experience gives students more reference on making good decisions. Why would you want to limit our ability to add to someone's life or learning?

Our team is a credit class in our district. Therefore it must meet certain lesson plans and goals throughout the year, all year. We build and prototype, improve understanding and ability, refine and correct strategy, and help others when we can. Part of that plan is a second robot platform.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

[Citation Needed] There have been numerous instances of GDC members posting on here that a level playing field is not desirable. I'd be willing to bet you that there are transcripts of Dean's speeches that outright say that we all need to work harder to get what we want. In fact I know there are but it is a couple years old at this point (I haven't had time to go through transcripts from modern speeches).

HA!

I cannot agree with this more, if a team has a large number of students then build a practice bot is just logical. It gives more students hands on time with the robot which is always a good thing. It also allows you to use your current machine as a demo bot during competition season.

Also, addressing a common misconception. Practice bots do not cost significantly more unless you build identical machines with all new parts on both every year. Reuse motors and controllers. There is nothing wrong with that.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

Really? Into our 4th year and their's still misinformation about FiM? 90 matches is only possible if you are very good - that means qualifying for States and also making it to the FIRST Championship. Then you might get to 90; actually, I don't think it's possible to get to 90 without either playing extra competitions somewhere or an inordinate number of ties in eliminations - more likely, you'll hit 90 only if you do an offseason event or two. Our registration guarantees us 2 competitions with 12 qualifying matches per competition - that's a total of 24 matches. If your good enough to make it into elimination rounds you can increase that number anywhere from 2 to 9 matches per competition. Then, if you've performed well enough, you can make it to the State Championship - another guaranteed 12 matches plus any elimination matches. (I just did the math, if you play to the championship round of every competition, playing the full 3 matches per round, and then make it on to Einstein continuing 3 matches per round, you will get to 88 - so throw in a couple of ties and you'll hit 90.)

Despite my little rant there, I agree with your point...even in MI, you need practice to succeed or you could be done after your 24 guaranteed matches (54 mins playing time). There's little time for on the job training if you want to advance.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

If teams could bring their modified practice bot to competition, then yeah, that would be like buying an extra three weeks of build season. But they can't. Hence, the practice bot provides a perfect example of a project that can provide an advantage but also brings a whole slew of additional responsibilities. I've seen first-hand what happens to teams who think, "we've got a practice bot so we don't have to finish by ship date." They quickly discover at competition that the two bots stopped being identical earlier than remembered, and their "three weeks -> eight hours" build plan is missing a few steps.

The practice bot presents an important design decision early in the build season: are you confident you have the resources to duplicate everything while still making ship date and develop a competent plan for applying the lessons you learn from weeks of practice to the competition bot in only one day? If so, the practice bot can give you a huge advantage, but with significant risk: if you underestimate your capabilities or fail to manage the project well, you may end up in a really tight situation come ship date.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

A while ago I thought that finding loopholes, or doing more then the rules suggested, was not necessarily moral. But then by that logic the person who discovers how to fold space by finding a loophole in the laws of physics would be anything but a genius. And the student who worked a 2nd job to buy a physics textbook to act their SAT2s would be anything but deserving.

I think the lines between loophole and innovation, as well as advantaged and prepared are very thin and blurry, if existent at all.

Tl,dr; No, a practice bot is no more immoral then an SAT study book.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

*** Start of Bragging (nanny-nanny-boo-boo) ***
This year, we have design-by-committee approach to the bot. Even with that seemingly ridiculous team organization, it's the start of week 3 and every cotton-picking detail of the robot is DONE in CAD. That's right, completed. Some teams are still deciding on drive train, others still deciding on shooter vs launcher. Well we're done. (except the odd-angle curved paneling that no one on our team has a clue how to do ...). Our robot is so done that I re-did the framing for a more product-friendly presentation, and perhaps to some an intimidation factor. Now we just have to weld the framing and fab some small parts, then assemble everything (perhaps wait on some parts ... no waiting on Banebots this year though, muahahaha). In the process we've rejected over 20 different individual designs for various functions on the robot. We've also re-adjusted our strategy as a tradeoff to keeping things simple. We can't have everything we want, but we'll be better for it.

If we stay on schedule, we'll have the bot to the programmers at the start of week 5. Collectively we've already put over 300 hours into the bot (I've already lost 4 nights of sleep...).

For a practice bot this year, we'll take an old protoype frame and make a simple drive train. Then we'll put some sort of launcher/shooter/something on it, and I'll run the drivers through drills. The key this year isn't just practice -- it's practicing with the robot 30 feet away, and practicing with a robot where the driver literally cannot see balls near the slot because of the shallow angle. That by itself will make or break some matches.
*** End Bragging ***

In my honest opinion, teams who rant about 'unfair' should do the following:
Quit whining and focus on your own robot.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

Just to add onto Andrew's statement, your practice bot doesn't necessarily need to be a exact replica of the competition bot - it just needs to replicate machine function well enough that using it to practice is worthwhile.

Some teams build an alpha and a beta bot where the alpha bot is made quickly and rather sloppily (compared to the beta bot) to prove the overall concept of the beta or final robot. The design from the beta bot is then derived from the alpha bot with the alpha bot serving as a reasonably good practice tool. Since the alpha bot in this case is just proof of concept, you can get away with running used motors, gearboxes, electronics, etc.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

To build onto that, to those complaining to use on CD about their unfinished robot: Get of Chief Delphi and start working/designing. Like my programming class teacher has said multiple times: "Stop complaining on reddit about your code not compiling and actually fix it". :) Love that teacher.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

Is it moral? Of course it is. There is no rule that is being broken.

Is it fair? No, it's not fair, but rarely in life are things fair. The teams that build practice bots have worked hard to be able to afford/gain that unfair advantage. If you (or any other team) wish to also gain that unfair advantage, you need to work hard at getting the sponsors/resources during the 'offseason'. In otherwords, that 'unfair advantage' is the result of hard work, and hard work is almost always moral.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

disagree !!!!

Unfair is when 'the referee is blind' and makes a bad call against your football team, or you get a disease through no fault of your own.

If team ( or person ) A outworks, out fundraises, out performs, team ( or person ) B - yes, that is completely fair. That is the definition of fair. It isn't undue advantage.

Compare students that show up and work very hard and participate in FIRST with those that are just on the roster or just show up to socialize. It is completely fair that the hard workers earn the scholarships and Dean's List awards. The sooner a student learns that, the better off they will be. Unfortunately most don't learn until much later in life.