Practice bot morality
 

What are your thoughts on the morality of a practice bot? Sure, you are not directly breaking the rules by working on your bot past the 6 weeks, but aren't you gaining an unfair advantage over other teams? Problems you find with your practice bot will be much quicker to find and fix once you get to competition.
Plus, you are spending more than the allotted $3500. Another advantage to teams with more sponsors/ resources.

What are your opinions?

Re: Practice bot morality
 

Illegal? No. Immoral? Not really.

I could tell FIRST that this so called "practice bot" is just an extra non-FIRST-related project that just happens to look like my competition robot.

As for money, like I said, non-FIRST-related project.

As for the immorality of it, there is nothing stopping other teams from doing it. If you say money is an issue, then go out and work on your business end of the team and get more sponsors. Every team is capable of getting a practice bot, though it may be harder for some than others.

You just need to work hard sometimes to get what you want, and in the end it's totally worth it.

Or you can do the "poor man's practice bot", which would basically just be your drive train and maybe 1 or 2 other components (Like this year it could be your drive train and ball sucker/magnet thing.)

Re: Practice bot morality
 

I will grant that it is an advantage. I won't debate whether or not it is unfair, but I will say that fairness is not always an appropriate goal.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

Our intent was to make our 2011 robot into a semi-practice bot if we had the resources, but not build a complete replica of the bag'n'tagged bot. With money being tighter than we had anticipated we're not going to see that happen.

It does "feel" unfair that other teams might have their sponsors manufacture two of everything for them, and get two or three weeks practicing/modifying a perfect copy of the competition bot. But thats just the world we live in.

I firmly believe that if a team has a truly good idea, and makes it a reality, they don't need a practice bot.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

If you work hard enough to make the money to build it, then you deserve to be able to build it without anyone getting on your case. It's just another tool to teach kids.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

There's nothing immoral about building a practice bot.

In terms of fairness? It's fair because everyone can do it, given the resources - if you don't have the resources then go out and get them.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

1) We're doing the same thing you're doing.

2) That last sentence... Are you saying your idea isn't good, because you're building a practice bot? ;)

Re: Practice bot morality
 

I will agree that its fair/ legal. But I think it still goes against the spirit of the 6 week build. Being able to build a replica of your competition bot that you can work on after you bag your bot gives you an advantage.

That being said, our team is planning on building a second practice bot after our first is completed. I'm not against them. I am just putting the question out there to see what other people thought on the subject.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

I think the practice bot may even be encouraged by FIRST. They do allow you to bring in 30 lbs of replacement parts to competition. Do they really expect you to bring in 30 lbs for spares? I think that building a second robot is an important part of FIRST, and it is fair because every team at a competition has the same amount of time to practice between bag day and the competition.

I know some teams may not have the resources, but all it takes is hard work. Ask your sponsors if you need to, explain the situation, and explain how beneficial it is to have a second robot, even if it's made of scrap metal.

Also, building and working with a practice robot makes build season seem longer, which is good because build season is fun:D

Re: Practice bot morality
 

Actually, we're NOT going to build one due to finances. If we're lucky we'll still have enough COTS leftover for the 2011 bot to be used for basic drive practice for our almost all rookie team.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

Oh. Nevermind.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

There is no other answer to this than "you are wrong".

The unfortunate reality is that the average team plays for somewhere between 18 and 60 minutes in a given year.

We spend more than 60 minutes practicing each day.

You simply cannot peak at your maximum potential without a practice bot, no matter how good the design is. Unless you compete in Michigan and can play in 90 matches in a given year.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

I see nothing immoral about it. Part of the reason people do FIRST is to get experience in the practices of engineering. One key principle of engineering is iteration. A practice robot allows a team to greatly increase the amount of iterations they can go through. They can practice, find a flaw, find a fix, and implement it at their competition. If you think about it as a tool for learning there can be no thought of it being immoral.

As for the thought of it being unfair to teams without the resources there are many inequalities in FIRST. Would you consider expedited shipping to only the continental US an unfair advantage? No probably not. You would say its part of the challenge and move on. Disparity in resources is very similar. There are many different ways to raise funds on your own and if your team feels a practice bot is a way to increase your teams ability to meet its goals then find a way to make it happen and call it even.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

"Going against the spirit of 6 week build [by adding to the robot after 6 weeks]"

Wouldn't most teams first Day at a regional be doing this :rolleyes:

Re: Practice bot morality
 

I won't argue morality, legality or any other point about practice bots which has been thoroughly debated and discussed in numerous threads several times per year.

However, I will say there that any team can pull themselves up by their bootstraps to the very top tier with nothing but hard work.

When I joined 973 (no offense to the existing team at the time), they were mediocre at their best, and often below average.

Each year we set a few goals, and we achieved them; Each year we got substantially better.

Four years down the road from that day, we have a larger far more optimized shop, more machines in house (including a CNC), 5 times the team's 2007 budget, substantially more members, practice bots, offseason projects, powdercoated robots and a fair amount of on-field success.

I am not trying to brag, merely making the point that with hard work any team can massively improve their circumstances.

There is no unfair, just a personal lack of desire to improve one's own circumstances.

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.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

Could not agree more! This is about inspiring students to make positive changes in their lives and in turn the world!

Part of the lesson is also in realism though. For instance when you go to college there are going to be those who work harder to get the highest grade on the test while you go to an all-night Skyrim game fest. Is it their fault that you chose not to study?

FIRST does not 'demand' that you win. They ask that you give your best and full effort to succeed, learn, and help others and that is wholly upon you.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

Our goal on Droid Rage 3381 is to have the students build the second robot completely untouched by mentor hands between ship date and competition. It is essentially our test to see if the students have picked up everything that they were taught over the course of the build season. Students go so far as to wrap it in police tape to make sure that no adults touch this robot for any reason.

Last year, the students completed the drive platform and we were running the robot around the shop, but we ran out of time before competition before the students could complete it fully. It was never a useful as anything but a learning tool for students, but hopefully they will work harder and have more time available to them to complete the second robot this year. Its great for us as mentors to see students teaching other students and a robot being built from scratch without us. Maybe someday they won't need us at all!!!

Re: Practice bot morality
 

I read the title of this thread as "Practice bot mortality" and thought, "yeah, heh, we beat the crap out of ours, too!"

If NCS can build practice bots, any team can. "Fair" is a four-letter eff-word; it belongs neither in school nor in your brain. It's fine to think, "Holy crap, there's no way we can beat the Thunder Chickens/Simbotics/Wildstang/Poofs/[insert so many other teams here]", as long as it's followed up by, "but we're sure as heck going to try!"

With FIRST, it's not "put up or shut up" like in sports... it's "put up and shut up". Don't brag, don't complain, don't whine, for GP's sake don't talk smack -- just do the best darned job you possibly can, every single time. Don't settle, and get better every week and every year. Talk to Paul Copioli if you really want to get inspired about what and how a team can go from zero to intimidating, state-of-the-art FIRST monsters through sheer effort, drive, and smarts. Legacy teams didn't become legacy teams through luck, and they sure as heck don't *stay* legacy teams through complacency and some kind of unfair advantage.

1551 isn't a FIRST powerhouse. I'm not even sure we aspire to be a powerhouse -- we just aspire to be better than we were last year, by as much as we can possibly manage given our resources. But I can assure you that we don't waste one synapse-fire on wondering whether or not what other teams are doing is fair, right, moral, ethical, or just. FIRST isn't about beating the other teams, it's about beating yourself. If you happen to get the occasional blue banner in the process, that's pretty cool, too.

To whit, if your practice bot can't be the same as your regular bot due to money or other limitations, make it close enough -- plywood instead of aluminum, toughboxes instead of planetaries, regular mecanum instead of octocanum... ...and for God's sake don't wait until your regular robot is done to build it -- wham-bang it together as fast as you can and give the protobot to your programmers as a test bench, then replace mechanisms with whatever's closer to "real" if/when you can.

Can't manage even that this year? Then focus on one or two mechanisms. Build 'em, refine 'em, and when you get to competition use your 30 lbs to replace 'em... And do that practice bot next year.

A healthy mind has no place for envy.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

For what I bolded, this is not necessarily true. We build a practice bot for 2011 and everything worked fine after some tweaking. We made the same tweaks on the competition bot and nothing worked properly. (Anyone at the Philly Regional last year may remember us as 3167: The team that scored nothing).

Re: Practice bot morality
 

But more often than not, I feel that it is. It's also dependent on how alike your two robots are. Over the years, 1124 had tried it's absolute hardest to build two exactly identical robots, and we must have learned tons from our second bot. Our two robots usually very translate very well to each other, and what works on one almost always works on the other. Also, it's an added plus to have your code "just work" when you go from one robot to the other.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

That's the definition of legality, not morality. (They are related concepts—but not the same thing.)

Re: Practice bot morality
 

our biggest challenge is beating our selves personally and collectively as a team.

Bingo !! -- nuff said.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

Ed's post should be required reading for everyone. The word "fair" gets tossed around far too often, both in FIRST and outside of it, without being fully understood.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

I like the word, ethical, rather than moral when thinking about this. It removes some of the sense of judgment for me.

Here's just a few thoughts to throw on the pile:

1. Having the time, resources, and energy to build a practice robot is an incentive. Committing to it, and following through with that commitment, shows maturity on the part of the team. It also shows that the team understands a bigger picture - doing as much as they can with the time and resources they have to be competitive.

2. That doesn't always happen. Teams may talk and plan for years and it still doesn't happen. The problem doesn't begin with resources - the problem begins with commitment. Building a practice bot and committing to practice time with the practice bot doesn't just happen.

3. A lot of factors are involved in the practice robot:
- team priorities
- management of time, organization, and funding
- practice space and availability
- goal setting

These are just a few that are involved with the commitment to building and using a practice bot for practicing. One of the biggies that isn't talked about much is the commitment of the adults' time that is involved in order to make it a worthwhile investment in achieving the team's goals. That's no small thing. Without the adults on board to coach, keep the space available, and be willing to deliver/pick up their children from practice if needed - it's not going to happen.

It's more than the practice bot. It's what the practice bot is about and what it says about the team.

Jane

Re: Practice bot morality
 

If it was useful as a learning tool for students, it was HUGELY successful.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

What would be cool is to see a powerhouse team with extra resources (people, parts, $) helping out a less mature team by helping them build a practice bot.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

Absolutely. I know people who think that FIRST itself in unfair. They know FIRST students who do better in math and science than other students who spend their spare time playing video games. Even if those other students did all the assigned homework! Is that fair? What about being able to put their FIRST experience on a resume, or apply their learning to real world problems? And beyond FIRST itself is it really fair to take a special class that helps you study for an SAT when others can't afford it? Of course it is a bit unfair, but it does not, and should not, stop us from helping these students learn even if it is a bit unfair to those we can't reach.

Lets all try hard not to break the real rules. Lets embrace gracious professionalization. But at the same time lets make sure that students with ambition and talent get the most opportunity we can give them to build, practice, and learn. Goodness knows that the real world will not be worrying about what is fair to them when the time comes for them to face it.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

Exactly. We have 82 students in our club this year. They are working, in three separate teams, on three prototype robots right now, with a few mentors working on two others. Some combination of the prototypes will get promoted to the final design, and the students will build two bots, one to bag for FRC and one to use for other activities. One robot from the bunch will go to two different science exhibits.

We probably have an advantage over a smaller team, though that can be debated. But we're still at a disadvantage to teams with better experience/skills, more money, better school support, etc.

In recent years, we built our competition robot on Thursday on the event; sometimes on Friday. But we've slowly built up our resources, and student interest is at an all time high despite those performances. We're looking to the future with a multi-year plan to turn the program into a championship FRC team.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

I wholeheartedly agree with everything said here. FIRST has leveled the playing field by providing 6 weeks to DESIGN and BUILD, and all of the other time is dedicated to bring in spare parts and practice. Every Team is capable of getting the resources for a 2nd robot. It depends on time, commitment, and a little bit of luck. If the team spends its time in the offseason fundraising, finding new sponsors, and working on build efficiency, they earned the resources needed for that 2nd robot.

Also, if you are determined to win the competition, you will practice. Remember, FRC is a varsity sport, FIRST is the organization to promote STEM. As with all sports, practice is the key to becoming a better player. Should I penalize my school's football team if they practice 4 days a week vs another school that only practices 3 days a week? :rolleyes:

Re: Practice bot morality
 

I will challenge my team to do that next fall.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

This thread shows why FIRST should just lift the 6 week build time frame.

Having unlimited time to build would actually help the teams that have less resources. Also, I believe that some of the teams with more recourses would still build two bots, even if there was an unlimited build time frame.

-Clinton-

Re: Practice bot morality
 

Amen Clint.

IMHO, the 6 week build restriction is an artifact of the early days of FRC, and is obsolete in the context of how the league now operates. The build period restriction serves primarily to keep weaker teams without the resources to buy redundant parts and equipment from doing continuous improvement. It does little to hinder the top teams. This causes quite a bit of stratifaction in the league between the 'have's' and the 'have not's'. This has gotten somewhat better now the suppliers like AM and BB can provide purchased solutions for many hard to make items, but the gap is still very obvious. Eventually this rule must die, it is really just a question of how long it takes NH to actually decide to do this.
Every step toward deregualtion that FIRST has taken in the past 20 years has served to make the robots better and the program more enjoyable. This change would be the same.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

Is it moral to build a practice bot knowing that there is a team out there that does not have the resources to build a practice robot? Hmm...

In my opinion there is nothing about building a practice robot that is not moral. In fact, every team should build one because by building a practice robot, you become a better, smarter and a more efficient team. There is a reason why people say "practice makes perfect." If you want to be perfect at a competition, you HAVE to practice. It's as simple as that. I can't even imagine how frustrating FRC regionals would be if teams decided to learn to play the game on the field, during the qualification matches. We all know how exciting 0 - 0 matches are. We all know how exciting the first day of a regional is from the stands.

There are many things that give teams an advantage other than a practice robot. For example, mentors and coaches! Having knowledgeable and dedicated mentors is a massive advantage! I think, that's what sets one team apart from the other 40-50 teams at a competition. Coaches who can make the correct split second decisions also give teams a huge advantage! Someone mentioned that their robotics program is a credit course in their district. This could also be a potential advantage as students might work harder to get marks as opposed to not being worried about marks by joining robotics as an extra-curricular activity.

In fact, there is no way every team will have equal chances of winning a competition or doing well in general. If you are at a disadvantage because of one thing, work harder! Or, try to gain a significant advantage in some other aspect of FIRST!

Re: Practice bot morality
 

Oh but then it wouldn't be fair in some other contrived way. This isn't an issue of fair any more than the mentor/student debates or the multiple competition debates are. It is all about teams seeing what other teams have and wanting it but not having to work.

Teams need to stop hiding behind fair and GP and start realizing that if they want something they need to work for it because no one is going to HAND them anything.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

It'd also make many teams more complacent about procrastination.

The best thing about Week 6 the FRC build season is that there's an end to it. After it, mentors can re-focus on work and relationships that were singed by the build season.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

I don’t really consider us to be a ‘powerhouse’ team but I feel the need to respond questions about ‘hard work’ and what it can get you. If we are going to have a discussion about ‘fair play’ then it is perfectly acceptable to talk about ‘hard work’ and ‘organization’.

Two months ago we opened the Kell Robotics Innovation Center, a 3750 sq. ft. facility for training, mentorship, workshop, exhibit marshalling, etc. Just in the past month we have worked with four 4-H teams, two Boys & Girls Club teams, four High Schools teams, two Future Seekers teams, and a collection of mentors. We have done this type of thing in the past but now it is great to have a permanent facility to host this type of support. We have handed out parts in the past and have no great problem with that, but when all is said and done teams must learn how to feed themselves. Part of things to learn at the ‘IC’.

A couple of times in the past we have started the season trying to build two robot and we have always failed. This year we are trying it again and we are pretty determined to get it done.

Sure, having a ‘practice’ robot will be helpful but we really need it for the ‘road show’. Over the past 3 or so years students have contributed over 6,000 man-hours exhibiting at over 120 events promoting FIRST. There is probably another 6,000 hours preparing for the events.

This past fall we won at GRITS in large part because the LogoMotion robot has not hardly been turned off since last spring. Our 2009 Lunacy bot is on its third or fourth set of slick wheels. We burn them down to the rims doing road shows on concrete and brick pavement. AndyMark is out of 6” slick wheels and we could use a bushel of them.

This year we have a great visual game that is audience friendly. This year is an opportunity to leverage the game into more public attention. If you can keep your bots together, do some exhibiting, work hard, earn some money, you can get some more resources. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Any football coach will tell you the great games are not won with the hail Mary passes. They are won months and years before slogging away in the hot sun, rain, cold, and everything else when everyone else is sitting indoors eating snacks and playing video games.

I apologize if this sounds a little much but it is really important that people develop great work ethics. Your employer will appreciate you for that.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

The 6-week build limits the pain. If the build time was increased teams would still pack in 5-7 day work weeks to stay competitive. IMO many mentors and students would burn out with an extended build season.

With an extended build season I could see some serious teams building 3, 4, 5 or 6 robots, with basic teams still only building 1. This would only serve to further increase the performance gap and driving up the cost of running a competitive team.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

Quoting the harsh truth for truth.

People who are sitting around complaining and whining are the same people who aren't doing anything. Part of the challenge of FIRST (i.e. not just FRC) is to not only play each year's competition well, but to play every year's competition well, and become a "powerhouse" team. That involves getting devoted mentors, training students each year, fundraising enough for sustainability and yes, sometimes building a practice bot. If you think that teams doing these things well are at an advantage, it's because they are. And they EARNED it. Even mentorbot teams have to deserve those mentors; I'm sure that if the students didn't work hard at all, the mentors would get frustrated enough to walk away (and if they didn't, you'd really have to respect the patience of those mentors).

Don't be an Occupy FRC team. Actually do something instead of camping in public forums with picket signs.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

I'm going to definitely agree with James. Limiting the build season makes the competition manageable for all involved, including FIRST themselves, I'm sure. FIRST is a sprint, and 6 weeks seems to be a very close optimum between "just enough time" and "total burnout".

I will say that one very positive effect of the fast build season is that it ignites a drive to think outside the box and gets juices flowing that ordinarily wouldn't with loads of time. Anyone that has worked on a multi-year project knows that a very bad side effect of taking your time is a real developmental lethargy. Contrast the Big Dig (a massive, 25+ year highway project in Boston that, sadly, isn't an example of excellence in our field) and the race to the moon. I think there is such a thing as "too much time" to complete a task where passion, innovation, and excitement dies and complacency, bureaucracy, and lethargy take their place due to human nature. For me, FIRST is a breath of fresh air from normal design processes!

As an aside, the above thoughts are shared with complete acknowledgement of the constraints that budget, processes, safety, and external factors have on project development. However, its a rare long-term, "more than enough time" project that seems to produce anything spectacular, whereas we all love reading about the amazing feats of engineering skill by teams "under the gun". Its inspiring!

To the original topic, I do have to agree with others that FIRST is inherently a change from the typical world of making everything artificially "fair" for everyone. That's not the spirit that drives innovation and is the opposite of FIRST. FIRST promotes competition through collaboration and inherently rewards those who work hard. For those who don't have the resources, the opportunity is there for those who have excess to voluntarily reach out to share. Or, there's the opportunity for teams to improve their own circumstances through fundraising and reaching out to companies or teams around them.

This is the opposite of forced sharing or regulations that restrict achievement. If another team has a full CNC shop and an unlimited budget due to hard work fundraising, they should get to reap the rewards! FIRST is about rewarding achievement and teaching students that good things come to those who work hard for them. Its the hardest fun around!

Re: Practice bot morality
 

What would be the advantage of building 3 or more robots? If the build limit were lifted there would be little advantage in even building 2 - wear and tear is the only reason I can think of that a team might make 2 robots. By lifting the build limits, teams that can't afford the practice robot would be able to continue to work and make improvements. The hard part for teams might be the discipline that would be needed to keep yourselves to the 5-6 week build schedule and use the rest for improvements.

Burnout can be an issue, but individual teams need to figure out where that limit is. Weigh the desire to do well vs. the busy schedule. It all comes down to what the team goals are and how much the team is willing to work to attain those goals.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

The advantage to 3+ robots is not having an extra practice robot, but significantly changing the design of the robot over and over.

I agree with your second point, that teams need to self-regulate in that manor. Consider that teams with significantly more students and coaches due to population density or local specialty high schools and tech companies would be at an even greater advantage because they will be able to leverage their increased people-power for a longer period of time, potentially increasing the disparity between large and small teams.

I am not arguing that FRC is fair (and I don't think it should be), but I do think it's a pretty $@#$@#$@#$@# good recipe for a robotics competition, and I think the 6-week build is a key ingredient.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

One angle I haven't seen mentioned is the effort behind a practice robot.

Building more than one robot is flippin' HARD! Teams and individuals who feel that another team building more than one robot is unfair, should really look themselves in the mirror. As has been said, all teams have the ability to go out and find resources. This program is all about what you put into it. The more put you in, the more you get out, plain and simple.

Building more than one robot comes with advantages, sure. As with all things it comes with tradeoffs. NO TEAM has infinite financial resources therefore money is one thing to consider in another robot. Time is another massive issue. Resources both in terms of mentor commitment, machine shops, etc. All of these things need to be considered when deciding to go past one robot.

The teams that do this, work extremely hard to make that other robot happen. To maximize the value of the second robot, your team now must work extra hard after build season ends. Again, time, money, mentors all need to be considered in this.

I've done it. It's really hard to pull off. I respect teams who can do it on an annual basis knowing the commitment it takes. I applaud those teams for pushing themselves to their maximum potential.

-Brando

Re: Practice bot morality
 

Good point...I suppose a rule could be made that lifts build season time limits, but restricts teams to building only 1 robot.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

987 has made a practice bot for the past 5-6 years now and have benefited from the extra practice time it has given us before/between Regionals and Championship events. It does mean that we put in more hours and resources but everyone has been willing to sacrifice for improved competition performance. That said, I think we would be less likely to suffer "burn out" if we could stretch out the hours allotted for build and revision in such a way that we wouldn't have to work 6-7 days for 6 weeks straight with late and all night sessions. I think FTC and FLL have it right. An open build season would put a lot less stress on everyone involved. Maybe we could even have more that a Friday off every week (which we went to this year to help avoid burning out).:)

Re: Practice bot morality
 

Let's be honest, things like this are just a fact of life.

In the real world, there are companies that have vast resources, that can afford the time, people, and finances needed to play around with concepts, ideas, and prototypes that they know will never see the light of day. At the same time, there are small or start up companies that don't have those same resources, but may be competing in the same markets. What is the smaller company to do? Give up and say that it's not fair that the large, established companies have so much while they have so little?

It's the same thing with FIRST teams. You have the larger, more established teams, that have worked hard to get where they are now. You also have the smaller teams, which strive to compete in the same competition as these "powerhouses". So what is a smaller team to do? Say its not fair?

The point I'm trying to make is, no matter what, whether you're a FIRST team or in the real world, there is not going to be a balance. The key is taking what resources you have and being smart about it. If you know you don't have the resources that other teams have, be clever about using what's available to you. Set realistic expectations and don't try to work on designs that are outside your scope. We all can't build a world class robot, but sometimes the simplest robot can be just as competitive, and make or break any team's season.

There are going to be teams that have the ability to build a second robot, and that is truthfully a feat in itself. It's hard enough to slap one robot together, but if a team has the drive to not only design and build one robot, but to replicate it, it's a major accomplishment. Smaller teams shouldn't be intimidated by this, but should strive to reach that point. For some teams, they may not be able to get there, but they can at least try to use what they have to build a robot that will give those teams a run for their money. Building a competitive robot is not out of reach for any team, as long as they are smart about what they have available to them.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

So every year, Woodie Flowers says during the kickoff that this challenge is one that mirrors the real world. We have not enough time, not enough money, not enough labor, to complete a project that's too vast, too intricate, and too difficult. The six week barrier is a studied, optimized constraint. FIRST has shown that if something doesn't work, they're not afraid to tweak it or dump it all together. The fact that the six-week build continues to exist speaks to their belief in its efficacy.
As I've said before, if FRC went to a limitless build season, I'd be forced into the choice between my team and my family, and I'm sure there are many more powerful individuals in the FRC world than I that would similarly step away.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

An FRC team's success should not be measured in how many robots it can build or how many blue banners it can collect. It should be measured by how many engineers (and other professionals) it 'builds'.

That's easier for mentors to see than students, but its true. My son was a founding student on our team in its rookie year. Frankly, competition wise, the team stunk its first few years. But he and others were instrumental in getting the team formed, organized and off to a strong enough start to where in its fourth year, it came in 2nd in the Lake Superior regional and first in the MN Robotics invitational. That's a success in itself for those who were willing to start the team.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

Yup -- and that's no choice at all. I am stretched to the limit of what I can handle now, and much prefered the days before the withholding allowance, where you were allowed to work on nothing -- not programming, not mechanisms, not anything -- unless you were at competition. I'm willing and able to do what we do now, including the withholding and practice bot and all that, but an unlimited season would be untenable for me as a human and husband.

(It would also seriously skew which regionals people would sign up for...)

Re: Practice bot morality
 

I don't understand this. If FIRST dropped the 6 week build limit, there would be no one from FIRST HQ holding a gun to your head to work beyond 6 weeks. Why not just organize your team to stick to a 6 week season?

For teams that want a practice robot but are already stretched too thin, eliminating the 6 week limit lets them practice.

For teams that already build a practice bot, eliminating the 6 week limit is a large relief from burnout from having to build 2 robots within 6 weeks.

For teams that have no interest, feel free to impose a 6 week limit to save your team from themselves.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

There are teams that would have the population to work full-bore for the entire time. These teams have a well-earned advantage now, but the advantage would become astronomical if they could work for the 6-week build, the two weeks before week 1, and then the 5 weeks until week 5 and 6 competitions. Not to mention there would be a huge disadvantage of week 1 and 2 regionals.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

If the ship date bag-n-tag date were to be eliminated (allowing a team to work on their robot all the way up to the competition), the return on investment/advantages gained by a lower or middle percentile team would be significantly larger than the R.O.I. gained by a top percentile team.

Think of it like the graph of natural log, with the x-axis being man-hours of work and the y-axis being robot performance. There is a minimum amount of man-hours of work it takes to just build a Kitbot drive train, but the more and more man-hours you put into prototyping, testing and refining, the lower and lower your returns will be for the amount of time/work invested in it.



Many top percentile teams have robots that are nearing the physical performance constraints of what can be accomplished with the given motors and electrical systems. And having more time to build wouldn't impact these teams for driving practice either, as many of these top teams already build an identical practice robot and build or have access to a full-size practice field.

The other reason why eliminating the ship date would help lower and middle percentile teams more than top ones is turnaround on parts. Finding a machine shop willing to donate time and labor to help make parts for your team is a lot easier if you tell them you have a two week turnaround time rather than a 5 day or less turnaround time.

Or for vendors like AndyMark or Banebots, being out of stock of a critical motor or gearbox is not as crushing to a team who lacks the resources to design a custom one in short order if the ship date is eliminated. How many teams were burned last year receiving gearboxes after ship date? How many of those struggled on practice day at their regional to mount these gearboxes and power up their robots for the first time? How many of these teams could have performed much better on the field if they had the ability to mount these motors and test their robots a week before the competition?

I also think the mentor/student burnout would be eased if ship date were eliminated and we have another several weeks to work on the robot. Given the extra time, why burn the midnight oil early in the build season? Why stress about trying to have Mechanism X completed and working in exactly 32.4 hours to make ship date?

Every other high school or college level robotics/competitive competition allows their teams to work right up to the competition, and every competition is exactly the same: all but the last three or so weeks are spent mostly easy-going, and then everyone crams like crazy in the last few weeks to get everything done. So even if the amount of man-hours of work is the same, the lessened stress from waiting for parts ordered from the Internet is definitely worth it. A one or two week turnaround for out-of-stock parts is not something to stress about then you have 7-10 weeks, but is a major source of anxiety when you only have 6.

Edit: And the "advantages" of teams who compete at later regional would be severely curtailed as District-style events spread throughout more of the country, as with multiple events, the likelihood you won't compete until late in the build season is reduced.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

IMO, it is not immoral or against the rules to build and use a practice bot if you have the resources. Yes you are gaining the advantage of having a bot that your driver can practice on and that you can make improvements to after the ship date, but you also will be using up valuable resources from your team that could be used making your REAL robot better. It's a classic situation of quality vs. quantity.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

Project schedules always grow to fill the maximum allotted time. There's a theorem or law or something in the software world that more elegantly states it.

If even 1 or 2 people on the 'team' isn't on board with arbitrarily cutting a build season down from an 'unlimited' amount of time, then they can easily convince the rest of the team that their view is better when the end of the arbitrary deadline hits. This is especially true if they're someone with a critical system that isn't finished.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

FIRST HQ wouldn't force teams to work beyond 6 weeks, but the pressure to keep up with the elite teams essentially would force teams to work past that point if they want to be competitive. I already think most competitive teams work too much as I don't think its healthy for high school students to work 7 days a week or till midnight. The reason teams are pressured to work long hours is so they can be competitive with the 111/1114/254/148s of the world. Now if you extend 'build season' until the competitions, we all know the elite teams won't just stop working but will be working on improving every facet of their robot. In order to stay competitive with them, your team will have to work after the first 6 weeks.

I also think that for the teams that show up to the competition with just a box bot, adding more time won't solve their problems. Those teams likely suffer from lack of mentors, lack of tools, lack of resources, and procrastination. Giving them 10 weeks opposed to 6 weeks won't take them from a box bot to a successful basket making, balancing robot.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

Sad but true.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

So, to put it bluntly, you can lead a horse to water but, short of drowning the dang thing, you can't make it drink. You can give a team all the time in the world but can't make them use it effectively.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

or money.
What I usually find those teams sorely lacking is mentor support.
The one thing that sticks out with the better FIRST teams is they have SEVERAL veteran mentors to lead them year after year after year. They are the constant on these teams that keep the standards high and lead the new generation.
A veteran mentor is worth a thousand practice bot to a FIRST team.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

Obviously teams don't use their time as well as they chould. I think this is true for 99% of teams from rookie to elite teams.

But, more importantly, if I tell 10 rookie students to build a robot but don't give them any tools, parts outside the kit and anyone with any FIRST or engineering experience, it likely won't matter if they have 6 weeks or 12 weeks, they will struggle at building a robot that can sucessfully score.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

An example of it was that rookie team at Midwest last year who's robot was not competition ready and a student from your team helped to make the robot functional enough to be the first alternative.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

We build a replica of our robot every year. I see nothing wrong with this. It really takes the strain off the drivers as they are able to get a ton of practice hours. And really... once you get to the pits at a competition, you are going to modify it outside of the build season, so...

Re: Practice bot morality
 

I would. But then again, we're twice removed - once from the mainland, and again from Oahu.

Yet, we persevere. 'Cause it's just :cool: to live on Kauai.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

Very interesting points, I didn't think of it that way. You may very well be correct.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

So change your allotted time...set you own robot completion date with benchmarks to hit along the way, and stick to it. This does require team buy in and holding people accountable for getting tasks done on time (or explaining why they weren't able to and proposing how to catch back up).

Re: Practice bot morality
 

I noted in my semi-committed review of this topic, that the FLL and FTC unlimited seasons were mentioned. Those programs have the unmentioned restriction of definite materials lists for the machinery. IoW they have the time extended but allowable components are much more restrictive than FRC. Would you be in favor of extending the build time IF the FRC components were more restricted?

Re: Practice bot morality
 

One compromise solution that I think would be a good balance between the current status quo and a "no ship date" option would be to still require bag-n-tag on a specific date, but have one or two access windows per each subsequent week available to all teams.

If all teams were granted the opportunity to have up to 2x 8-hour access windows per week following the ship date, this would allow all teams to have the ability to practice driving, add/modify mechanisms, work on programming, add parts that may have arrived after "ship date", and would overall mitigate the "need" that many teams have for a practice robot. At the same time, these access windows would be a limitation to prevent teams from burning themselves out by working on the robot every day from Kickoff to competition.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

Thats unenforcable, and there will always be alligations of "they kept it out far more than 8 hours".

Re: Practice bot morality
 

Tell that to Michigan?

Re: Practice bot morality
 

The current 'bag and tag' system is unenforcible. I also think it would be ignorant to believe that absolutely every team obeys this rule.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

That is why it is most likely just a matter of time before FIRST goes to an unlimited build season.

As for Week 1 competitions having a "disadvantage", I would have to disagree because week 1 teams are still figuring out how to play the game. If you focus your design on one task an do it well (Minibot 2011, Hanging 2010), you could have a better chance winning a week 1 event rather then a week 5 event.

As for overloading Mentors and Students, that is something that all teams need to manage. Everything in life needs to be done in moderation, even FIRST.

-Clinton-

Re: Practice bot morality
 

While I agree that we cannot say that absolutely every team obeys this rule, I would say most do. There is something to be said for having mentors not only model what it means to be an engineer, but to also model what it means to have integrity. It would be more important to lose with integrity than win without it.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

I completely agree with you.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

I've seen instances in which students have confronted mentors who were engaging/about to engage in what the students viewed as unethical behavior. Mentors aren't the only role models out there. Inspiration is a two-way street.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

For what it's worth, there was a team at one of the Canadian Regionals in 2010 that admitted to working on their robot after bag day (Built a 469 copy is memory serves me correctly) and they were still allowed to compete. As far as I know, there was not, and is not a mechanism in place to address instances like this - by the letter of the rule, an offending team should not be allowed to compete with that machine, but it's hard to turn a team down at an event.

Spotlighted.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

Who are we kidding? Most elite teams work just as much after ship as they do before; the only thing stopping other teams from doing so is their lack of desire to do so.

Making it an open event will hardly "force" other teams to work more.

If they do an open style, they should just shorten the time between kickoff and week 1 events.

Re: Practice bot morality
 

I know that we follow the build restrictions rules very strictly - to the point of counting down seconds (if needed) to to when the bag needs to be sealed. I like to believe that most every team follows these rules also. Either way I don't waste any energy worrying about it because the only thing I can control is what my team does.

The only time I worry about what other teams are doing is when I'm looking for ways to improve the way our team operates. Do I envy the perennial powerhouse teams? Yes. Do I begrudge them? Definitely not. I try to emulate what they do. From my experience, the thing that separates the powerhouse teams from the rest of the pack, more than even money, is their work ethic and preparedness. If we're not happy with our level of success (or lack thereof), we know we just need to work harder to get where we want to be.

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.