Hey Joe, a couple replies to your reply - hope all is well by the way :)
 

Does anyone think that a good compromise would be that robots were direct shipped from regional to regional - but all teams going to Orlando would have 3 days to work on the robot after their last regonal. This way every team at every event would have had basically the exact same amount of robot construction time as all the other teams at the event???

First, I should clarify that I TOTALLY agree with and understand the arguements in favor of getting to keep the robot for 3 days to work on it. Extra driver practice IS a great thing to get more of, getting to work on the robot and make repairs after an event IS a great thing, and so on - all is true. In a few years, when there are local regionals for almost all teams, then it would be fair. But with some 200-300 teams NOT having a local regional (or having their local regionals on consecutive weeks - 4 days between them), this rule just increases the advantage of being able to go to multiple regionals and having more regionals in your area.

This really isn't a big deal - ideally I agree that the rule should let teams work on the robot after a regional - it just doesn't seem equitable based on geography and some regionals being 4 days apart while others aren't. When in doubt on a rule, I just normally seem to agree with whatever is 100% consistent to all teams - not favors some over others. Doesn't mean it's right, just how I normally feel.

I admire Bill Gold from 258 for stating that they would just rather not have the advantage out of respect for the teams who can't work on their robots - he would rather compete with them with the same amount of time to build & drive the robot. Teams going to multiple regionals already get extra practice & robot build time just by being there for 3 days - I just don't feel they need more if other teams can't get more.

I don't think anyone is wrong on this issue - just seems there are different perspectives.

Nope, not my point at all - I hope it didn't come across that way. Just a Tomato/TomAto thing. For the most part, I see any rule which is consistant across the board and effects all teams the same as fair. As the rule was last year, I see all the teams NOT being able to take the robot home for 3 days as "disadvantaged". If all teams shipped directly, I would not see anyone as disadvantaged, because it would be equal for all. One important point - direct shipping in NO WAY "equally disadvantages" any team. It doesn't impact the 6 week design & build process at all. All teams would still have the same amount of days to work on the robot at home, in their work place.

I don't really care about the advantage/disadvantage of extra resources or funding. In fact, I look at the teams with more funding or resources than most teams as a good example, or goal, for newer teams to look up to and strive to achieve. These are things teams can work towards year round to try to improve their program. My point was that when it is a rule, dictated by FIRST, TOTALLY out of the hands of teams, which gives an advantage to some teams over others and ADDS work days with the robot to some teams but not others, than I disagree with it. This rule is not a resource or funding issue - it is a geography and time issue .

I guess it's just a different experience for different teams. The teams at the West Coast Team Forum overwhelmingly support the direct ship rule - at least between regionals - as they have NO WAY to work on it for 3 days after an event, especially since all three west coast regionals were placed on consecutive weekends.


You are right that the part which broke "may" have been caught beforehand, but very well may not have - especially since it didn't break until the 3rd day in Florida after practice and qualifying rounds. It could have been that the part simply broke due to the fatigue and stress of all the matches it participated in during 4 events. (if CD had only entered 3 events in 2000 - I think they would have been National Champs, but needed just a few more matches before the fatigue caught up with that crucial part) I have said this before and will say it again, in my eyes the CD robot from 2000 was the top robot in the country. Much like the TechnoKats in 98 and Beatty in 2001, it is incredible when one robot stands out above all the rest - but CD did in 2000. I normally expect a number of teams to distinguish themselves as being equal "top tier" teams - as I felt happened in 99 - but I was so impressed in 98, 2000 (same could be said about 25 - that arm was AMAZING, and still causes nightmares to us & the GilaMonsters I am sure), and 2001 that those 3 or 4 teams managed to build robots which (again, in my eyes) were head and shoulders above the rest.

About the direct ship or 3 day extension rule, valid points on both sides I think. Glad to have the discussion though - what you (Joe), Mike, Mike, and the rest of the CD team do on an annual basis is remarkable. I (as many do) look forward to seeing what you come up with this year!

Jason

After reading the posts on both sides of the issues, I must say that I think that robots should be directly shipped. This is coming from a team that lives an hour away from VCU, too. Yes, if this is a requirement, your robot not might get those final perfecting changes, but I think that that is a part of FIRST as well. Simply going to a regional gives a team an advantage with driver training, design checking and strategy. At the very worst, if a robot breaks, then drop out of the rest of the regional - you will still have more time to work on your bot than teams that are far away from regionals or don't have the resources.

Either way though, I'll be happy. I feel odd in not being in complete support of one side of the issue or the other - LoL, it really seems like people in this QOTW have said "obviously yes!" and "obviously no!" at the same time. For this I must congradulate Ken Leung for choosing a most wonderful topic choice.

~Tom~, who was really sick of the talks about how nationals were unfair etc. and is extremely glad to move on to another topic. :D

Just a thought... What if the rule was set up so that each team could keep their robot until 3 days before the 1st event they attended? Wouldn't that be an interesting twist - I'd bet teams would think twice about going to multiple events and concentrate on creating the best darn robot that they could for the events that they will be attending. Is that any less fair when each team has the option to choose when and where thay want to compete? Some will say that its a bad idea, and thats okay - I just thought this might be worth discussing?

One event teams, small teams, rookies...
 

Last year, we at 550 were in a horrible, horrible situation. I'll start at the begining, to establish it better. Warren tech is a small technical high school, with less than 425 students, and nearly 35% of those students spend half the day at Tech and half of it at another school. There is a staff of 45 people, including maintenance and administration. We're tiny. The day before winter break last year, there was no coach, no team, no plan. Our principal managed to get one teacher to commit to going to the kick-off by the end of the day. Still no team. Monday after kickoff, the principal walked through the lunch room and grabbed a half dozen of the more intelligent people that got to know him well when he was assistant principal, myself included, and dragged us up to our auto shop. Oh, by the way, we had barely any support and no engineers, but we figure we don't need any, mainly because we still have no support. So, we're in the shop, and there's the red and green boxes and the mailing tube. It was at this time that we were declared the robotics team. For three weeks, we managed to design a bunch of stuff that couldn't be built under budget, and some other stuff. Around a week before ship date, with our lift-bot half-assembled, we started driving it around and testing. Sometime around the day before ship date we realized we couldn't finish it in time if our lives depended on it, so we boxed it. Sometime around ten minutes before ship time it was realized that we needed a bunch of papers and files and stuff to go out that day too. We garbled that, and for another three weeks we pondered the competition. Then, Tuesday of competition week, we packed all the stuff we thought we'd need. Needless to say, we brought almost nothing we did. Thursday, a driver, Dave, pulls a total-robotic-destruction move in a practice match, burns every motor on the bot except the compressor's, kills a piston, jams rack and sliders, breaks gear teeth, and sets the rug and another bot on fire! Boy, was I glad I was prepared for that! The judge comes over to me and tells me that the bot is smoking; I had noticed that, and I was looking for the cause when I saw the rug catch fire. About that time, I hit the kill button, hit Dave, and threw the bot off the field. I was angry, to say the least. Once the three flaming things (the field, a wooden bot, and the aluminum base on our bot) were extinguished, a half-hour was spent fixing the field, and then four hours were spent fixing our bot. About that time Dave informed us that he forgot his glasses, and he is legally blind without them. To this day, I have no idea why he came at all. The next day went as follows: three matches, one major repair, and a succession of a dozen or so matches requiring repair after each. We had eight people, no assigned drivers, and a load of confusion. And then came the FemBots series. Four matches, in succession, each with an excellent bot constructed wholly by engineers and driven by incompetant girls. This isn't to say all girls are incompetant; it just happens these two teams were incompetant and female. Totally, I don't think the point total of those matches exceeded 20. We dropped from 15th place to 40th place within those matches. Not a happy time. After that, the bot held up nicely, when we couldn't compete due to an amazing point deficit. We went to the party, and then Friday came. Our few matches that day went smoothly, and we wound up in 44th place, leading only one of the FemBots teams. But, on the whole, I enjoyed the experience, and I wouldn't give those full three months for anything.

I think the only way to settle this issue is to make FIRST like any other sport. Regionals are for one region, and so teams are only allowed to attend one regional (and the national). This would level the playing field a bit for smaller teams who can't afford to travel and pay $4000 per regional in order to get more practice and time. It would also avoid the many spectator comments that "all regionals are the same." However, it is also a lot less fun to only attend one regional :).

I agree, Zan, that it definitely would level the playing field for rookie teams. However, were it not for norcallers coming down to socal, we might not have gotten enough teams to have a socal regional last year. Granted, this year was much larger and it would have been better for the newer, smaller teams if they had not had to compete against some of the more experienced teams. But with a few exceptions, there were far more socal teams at the norcal regional than vice-versa.
I wonder if someday FIRST will be forced to limit teams to one regional each?

Re: QUESTION OF THE WEEK!!! [11-11-01]
 

I personally think that taking home a robot from a competition is a bad idea. I think it gives teams an unfair advantage over other theams. For instance, what if a Team A had a competition in the first week of competitions and Team B didnt have a competition until the third week. At the third week competition both teams were at the same competition. That means that Team A had two more weeks than Team B which is really unfair. I think that the robots should be shipped to the competitions so as no team has a leg up on each other.

Re: QUESTION OF THE WEEK!!! [11-11-01]
 

You realize this thread is 4 years old and teams have not been able to take their bots home after the competitions since 2001... right?

Re: QUESTION OF THE WEEK!!! [11-11-01]
 

Holy thread resurrection, Batman!


-dave

Re: QUESTION OF THE WEEK!!! [11-11-01]
 

The 2006 game will clearly involve zombies.

Re: QUESTION OF THE WEEK!!! [11-11-01]
 

Wow I clicked on this and got covered in dust.