Re: Practice bot morality
 

I don't think an unlimited build is the way to go. For those teams already struggling to get a robot done, it really won't do much at all and I have a feeling it could just make the first day of regionals/districts even more hectic for those teams.

With the current system, you can only bring to the competition 30# (I'm not sitting here with a manual open) of what are essentially "improvements"/spares for your robot. This keeps teams in later weeks from completely redoing a robot or something close to it after the first week, and holds your team accountable for having something done after six weeks. I like the idea of being held accountable and not being able to redo everything. I think it's more in the spirit of competition. If you could redo everything, there would eventually be a huge amount of design equality, for lack of a better term. That may sound like a good thing, but it takes some fun out of the competition too.

Cheaters will always find a way to cheat. I'd say that they simply don't get "it", with "it" the point of FIRST, if the wind up cheating.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

Currently, elite teams have been able to nearly complete redo large amounts of their robot.

Within the current rules, they are the only teams really capable of doing so however.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

They could reduce the rule down to 10lbs or so -- just enough to bring in the CNC'ed stuff, but not enough for a drop-in full assembly. Want to iterate your design between Regionals and Champs? Then prepare to show just how elite you are by doing it in the time crunch of Championship Inspection Day.

Of course, that's unenforceable too. So maybe they should just eliminate withholding altogether except for the as-needed basis when snow removes and entire 2 weeks from the build schedules of some teams.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

This style rule makes it more difficult for all teams; Elite teams will still be able to remake systems and succed, lesser teams won't.

More regulation leads to favoring the elite teams.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

You mean like adding a ramp for minibot deployment?

Every team should be iterating their designs between Regionals and Champs, continuous improvement. This is exactly like real life, if someone settles for their design and think that there isn't anything better to do they will be left behind (example http://www.buggy-whips.com/).

Like many people have already said the time contrant and rules only allows for the strong team to achieve greatness and limits the teams with less resources.

-Clinton-

Re: Practice bot morality
 

Restraints like a 6 week build season only make the elite teams more set apart from the rest. The elite teams will be perfectly capable of turning the 6 weeks they are given into the most they can, while other teams may struggle to stay on schedule.

Also, having a common cut off point to the build season doesn't really accomplish much. Everyone at a given event will have had the same amount of time since Kickoff to refine their machine. Currently, if you have only one event in Week 5, you don't get to see your robot for 6 weeks, and that week 5 event is the first you really put it through any strain. Teams that attend, say, a week 2 and then a week 5, have already had an entire regional and the time at that event to access their robot and make any changes, and they are far more prepared for the week 5 event than the former. If you didn't have to bag your robot, you could still be sending those five weeks testing your machine and refining it in preparation for your one event. Elite teams invest in practice robots for this very reason, so ship day is separating the best from the rest even more.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

Agreed.

the greatest lesson we can teach our kids is how to win.

How to set a goal to achieve some task, while at the time being fully aware that you are probably unaware of and currently incapable of solving half the battles along the way. Then, how to achieve that task.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

I like comparisons to the vague, esoteric, "real life". Real life has deadlines and engineers have to live with their choices, good or bad, after those deadlines.

Products have ship dates, projects have delivery dates, and software has launch dates. Iteration after those dates are usually due to a continuous cycle (cars improve every year), a public black eye (the iPhone 4 antenna, the 2007 Banebot transmission), or the need to adapt to market conditions after the fact (in which case you've already lost market share).

Allowing teams to work on their robot between Week 6 and Championships would be more like real life than leaving build season completely open. It'd also give mentors on all teams a break.

I'm not advocating a 'level playing field' by any means. I'm completely against removing the 45 day build season deadline on both principle and from a burn-out perspective. I'm also simply pointing out that I don't remember a 30 pound withholding allowance before the 2009 snow storms, so it's not like FIRST tried to balance elites and non-elites with that either.

Teaching kids how to win is one thing. Encouraging them to adopt a design paradigm that isn't pragmatic is entirely something else.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

I thought the Spirit and Opportunity robots had exact copies on earth for NASA to test with (one could call it practice) before having Spirit and Opportunity try it for real. Someone correct me if I am wrong. With aerospace, one cannot afford to make mistakes. You have to test before to be sure (often many times before).

Practically, I think all industries have some sort of equivalent of the practice robot. If an engineer receives a customer complaint or wants to improve the product, he or she should have a copy of that product to replicate the complaint or identify a potential improvement.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

True. Well, one "close enough" copy that I know about. They also had a "Mars Yard" to test in.

I think you're right about the industry, as well. Sometimes, that company copy isn't quite enough, but if an issue is known, it can be used to test solutions.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

I don't believe that teams should do this because, like other people will say, it kinda goes against the spirit of FIRST.
FIRST wants this whole experience to be a friendly and fair competition, as well as a learning period. Team spirit and teaching student to compete and not care about winning.
THAT is what these competitions are about.
If a team can't complete a robot in 6 weeks... it's a learning experience.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

On what do you base that statement?

Re: Practice bot morality
 

If there wasn't an emphasis on winning why do we keep score? Make no mistake, this is a competition and a competition has winners and losers. If your robot doesn't move no amount of good feelings is gonna make that anything other than a complete failure at the goals of this competition. FRC is an engineering challenge to further the goals of FIRST. It is not supplemental education, it is not a learning experience, it is a competition in which industry partners with students to inspire them and show them that engineering is cool. This isn't about teaching. This is about making kids realize that Andy Baker is cooler than whoever won Survivor (or whatever it is kids these days watch).

A grotesque misunderstanding of the benefit of a practice bot.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

Exactly! Learning never stops. Why try?

Re: Practice bot morality
 

What if those were one and the same?
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A team motto that I think captures the spirit of this competition is 973's simple two-word phrase, "OUTWORK US." If a team chooses to work to the best of its ability within the rules of competition, why should we try to project shame on them?
If my team had deep pockets and dozens of adult and student members, I'd have them build 3 or 4 robots just to keep everybody busy! (we've already had to mend our fender twice due to basketball mishaps)