Re: Practice bot morality
 

I couldn't disagree with you more. Whole-heartedly, unequivocally disagree. And not just in regards to FIRST

Re: Practice bot morality
 

The challenge is NOT your friend. Successful teams aren't going to shy away from any sort of opportunity (provided it's legal) to get ahead of the pack because it's not "in the spirit of the challenge." The same goes for those who are successful in the real world.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

Maybe I've spent too much time on Chief Delphi and been influenced by the greats around here, but I agree with them:

If you don't have a practice bot, then you have the opportunity to. If you can't, then work harder, and you will. There is nothing unfair about it.


Unfair would be FIRST offering the rules to rookie teams a week early, or changing the rules to make the game harder for veteran teams. Utilizing your resources is not unfair.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

My point was that one can always improve their circumstances through hard work (applied in the right direction, hard work the wrong way does no good).

Unfair is only brought by people who are unwilling to do the above.

I'm not claiming everyone can become a billionaire, astronaut or other wildly lofty goal merely through hard work. I'm claiming that one can always improve through proper application, and therefore there is no unfair.

My team is a perfect example. We used to be a have-not, and now we're a have. This was achieved exclusively through hard work.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

On what grounds? Basically you are just sitting there saying "NO!" with your hands in your ears. Explain exactly what part it violates? One of the requirements for a discussion is that you can't just pretend that you have veto authority, you have to convince me you are right.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

The only serious inequality here (I hesitate to say "unfairness") is what I would call 'enthusiastic student and mentor population density.' Not every team will have the same result if they involved every single interested person within a practical travel radius simply because of where they are located. For this reason alone some teams will be more capable than others, all else being equal, because they can simply recruit more mentors and students because there is a larger pool to draw from.

To highlight this I would compare Stuypulse (694) and The Grasshoopers (95, my team) simply because I am somewhat familiar with Stuy HS and 95. Stuy is a high school dedicated to science and math with ~3300 students, a fantastic student body to draw from by any stretch of the imagination. 95 draws students from three local public high schools with a total combined student population of ~2300 students. One of these teams will probably wind up with more students than the other when all interested students are recruited :rolleyes:

Re: Practice bot morality
 

How does building a second bot violate anything? I, like Mike mentioned above, agree there is no right or wrong answers in this debate. Opinions will vary on whether or not you should - but saying it violates anything, without any rational behind that statement does not advance the discussion.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

Work harder to recruit more. Simple solution.

If you make everything into black and white, hard work solves everything ;)

Re: Practice bot morality
 

I disagree. I think ANY team can do this. My team has proven this many times that if you design with as many COTS, super Vex, and standard stock as possible you can build/rebuild a robot cheaply at an event. In 2009 We replaced our entire frame because of a bad design forced by part availability.

We have believed for several years since that happened that if you go to 2 events you can completely convert your robot within witholding. This is why we joke about a Thursday robot build off to show how stupid the rules are. If you plan a modular design well anyone can do this.



Slightly of topic:
As an engineer at an aircraft engine company I can attest to how true this is. For commercial aircraft engines we build and test engines on the ground first. Then we put them on a flying test bed, by replacing an engine on a 747SP. We have to do all kinds of ingestion tests and structural tests to certify parts before we can even fly a plane powered solely by these new engines.

Even when I worked at a commercial industrial division of the company building power plants all upgrades and software was exhaustively bench tested then implimented on a company owned test unit before the customers ever saw anything. This is the way the real engineering world does business. You never risk hurting a customer asset or your reputation by trying unproven systems in the field.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

What am I going to do? Hold a gun to people's heads? It's hard to wrap my head around, but a large portion of the student population around here simply isn't interested in anything like FRC.

My team has demo'd the robot for many high school classes and watched many students' eyes completely glaze over. We'll offer to let anyone drive the robot and get cricket chirps. We demo at every local high school. We demo at the local FLL event. We demo at sponsor's businesses and at trade shows. Trust me when I say lack hard work is not the issue here. Maybe we're doing something wrong, but a lot of it is a pure and simple lack of interest in anything related to robotics.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

One pregnant woman takes 9 months to have a baby.

Nine pregnant women still take 9 months to have a baby.

"If it can't be done with brains, it won't be done with hours" - Kelly Johnson (or something like that, the internet doesn't seem to agree on the original phrasing)

On the other hand, I agree with the sentiment. Not everyone can be a Bill Gates or a Warren Buffett. But you can be absolutely sure that Bill and Warren wouldn't be where they are today if they were lazy. Hard work is a necessary prerequisite for luck.

Ether has mentioned books by Malcolm Gladwell before, I read them and Gladwell has lots of good ideas on the subject.

Mostly Unrelated:
This is my favorite comic, and it ties in directly with comments about aerospace not being able to afford mistakes. I think you certainly work to avoid mistakes, but not making any is impossible. That is why aerospace requires so much testing, as when you do make an error you want to catch it in a non-critical situation.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

Mike I couldn't disagree with you more.

I believe that strict enforcement of the 6 week build cycle is the way to go.

No withholding allowence, no assemblies (other than COTS) brought to the competition, etc will serve to make all this go away. The 6 week build season is an integral part of FIRST (or has been since its inception) and I believe should continue to be.

While practice bots are an unfair advantage (compared to those who don't build them), they are an advantage born of hard work and dedication ... and should be, not only, allowed but praised.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

Once upon a time, there was a competition called the Fair Robotics Compeition. The principle of the competition was fairness first (even before safety). It was the fairest compeition in all the land. The one guiding rule was that fairness was in the eye of the beholder, and thus if someone thought something was unfair, the Fair Robotics Compeition would make a change. The first year of the competion was a lot like the FIRST Robotics Competition, but there were a ton of complaints. The next year, practice bots, and going to more than one compeition were dissallowed. Everyone noted that the scoring was much lower, and the action much worse, but it was more Fair, but still not fair enough. Many teams were larger and had more money, so the Fair Robotics Compeition board put a cap on total team budgets. There was also a lot of complaints about tool useage, so there were strick enforcements of which tools would be allowed. The actual compeition at the event suffered more. Most agreed that it was more fair, but there were still a few naysayers that thought it was unfair that some teams had more man-hours because they were larger. Also, not every team had a technical mentor, so those were not allowed. Lastly, not every team had a programmer, so only base code was allowed. That year, the robots really suffered, and scoring got even lower. By this point, the GDC had lowered the bar to the most rudimentary tasks, but without any technical mentors, most of the robots suffered to drive around much at all. The following year, Texas got hit with a Blizzard, that made everyone have to stay home. In order to be fair, a temporary stop work was placed on all teams in order to be fair. Unfortunately, it was the last week of build season, so virtual no robots were ready for compeition. That year really sucked. Because of it, the GDC got together and decided the next year, teams would build and assemble their robots at the compeition. In order to do this, there robots were greatly simplified. The task was also greatly simplified to essentially driving around a course on the carpet. While everyone agreed the competition was extrememly fair, it was universally agreed that it was incredibly un-inspiring. Almost everyone left the Fair Robotics Compeition for something more interesting and exciting. It was called the FIRST Robotics Compeition. While not as fair as Fair Robotics Competition, it was a lot more challenging, exciting and inspiring.

In racing, there are tons of series that try to promote "fair" racing. The tighter the control, then the closer the field is. The closer the field is, the more powerful tiny "cheats" become. I raced in Spec Neon for a few years. At the event I raced at, a good time was around 1:21 to 1:22s per lap. A 1.25% cheat would remove basically 1 second from your lap time. For a car that produces 138 HP, this was finding an engine cheat that would increase performance by just 1.7 HP. That 1 second was usually the difference between 1st place and around 5th place. SCCA racing is even worse. If you do too good with a particular car, it may get promoted to the next class where it suddenly is a slow worthless piece of junk.

I would recommend spending less time worrying about "fairness" and more time worrying about your team achieving its objectives. If your goals are wanting to perform at a really high level with respect to the peers on the playing field, than you better learn what they do that makes them perform well, and compare/contrast that to your program. If your objectives are to learn some neat stuff and not really concerned about the outcome, great. One thing I do not understand though, if a team's goal is just to show up and learn a bunch of neat stuff, why would they care if a compeition was "fair"? Wouldn't they just be concerned with whether or not it was a good learning platform?

Back slightly on topic, trying to produce a second robot "practice" robot that acts the same as your competition robot is very difficult. There is a ton of learning that comes out of just trying to get the two to act the same...

Re: Practice bot morality
 

Well said IKE.

/Thread perhaps.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

What he said! ^^^^