Why do we bother bagging?
 

I'm glad we went from shipping to bringing our own robot to competitions, but why do we even bag anymore? Many teams build nearly identical twin robots so that work can continue after build season and into the competition. Yes, generally there is less stress for students and mentors after the robot is bagged, but many teams will still meet to work on the "practice bot". Many teams, however, can't afford to buy/make two of everything, so they're really stuck with the robot in the bag. Why not make it fair for everyone to just leave it out so teams don't need to waste money building a second robot to continue work? Let teams manage their own schedules so mentor and student burnout doesn't happen.

Just my opinion.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

This has been debated before. I'm sure you can find a thread using the search function if you would like to see more opinions on it.

The majority of replies to such threads can be summarized to: It is fair. Teams with practice bots worked to obtain the resources and skill it takes them to make two robots. The only thing stopping your team from being like them is more hard work.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

Clearly our definitions of "fair" differ. Surely you can't think that a rookie team building out of a parent's garage is expected to be able to afford and build two identical robots in the same manner as teams with access to CNC waterjet, milling, lathe, etc. All that stuff doesn't appear over their first year just by "working hard". There's a clear analogy to socioeconomics we have today, but I'll refrain from going there.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

On the other hand, you can't think that every team should have to build out of a parent's garage. I have seen more than one rookie team that looks like a FIRST veteran even without a mentor with prior FIRST experience. I suspect it was because they did their research before jumping in, reached out to other veteran teams, and used the resources available to them to succeed.

There are multitudes of resources for all teams, not just rookies, to help them obtain more sponsors, help, and other types of resources.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

Really the question we need to start asking is "Why do we bother bagging at all anymore?"

When the competition landscape shifts to a majority district system, will we see the robot lock-ups disappear? Before? After?

Don't say FRC will be keeping these kinds of restrictions forever. Some members of the community who have been doing this for far longer than I have (6 going on 7 years) think that bagging/locking up the machine is an archaic a practice as regionals in dense areas.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

Powerhouse teams don't pop into existence overnight. It can take years to reach the level where building two robots is within a team's grasp. This year said rookie team may be building out of a garage but that is precisely where many big teams started. The year after though they can collect more sponsors and grow their team... and the next year even more- and although it won't happen overnight if there is a strong enough passion and drive to improve and succeed, that former rookie team will be waterjetting practice robots in no time.

I know how tough it can be to feel "left behind" when you see these huge teams with massive resources but they were rookies too at one point and likely not that different than yourselves.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

610 is not lacking resources but builds 1 robot.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

Of course I don't expect everyone to build out of a garage. I'm saying teams waste thousands of dollars every year to build a second robot that doesn't need to be built. I'm sure there are some rookie teams like the ones you mention, but the reality is that those teams are very few and far between.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

Really! It has been shown with RI3D that we don't need 6 weeks to build. Many of us have jobs and family that if build gets longer we will not be around. As you have been told many times, life is not fair. Some teams have more, some less but all must be completed at the required time. This is just like the world we live in. Get the job done on time or your out. Best to learn these lessons now than when you are trying to feed your family.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

If I got to decide, I would eliminate the bag deadline.

To be fair, there would still be high resource teams building two robots if we didn't have to bag. Instead of building two identical ones in 6 weeks, they'd build one before competitions and then build a second one using what we all learn from the early competitions.

I still say that would be better. It would be easier for a lot of middle of the pack teams to build better robots with the same resources.

People would have to get used to the idea that you don't necessarily want to meet 7 days a week for 3-4 months of the year. "But we have to, because Team ABCD does." No, you don't have to.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

This thread is an excellent read, and covers this topic pretty in depth.

Post 204 is biggest thing you could take away from the thread, quoted below.

Post 207 and post 233 are also very insightful.

What I took away was, Jim Zondag is very smart, listen to him.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

As a team that builds two identical robots (to very high standards of quality), I'd like to offer my perspective which you may find interesting.

Last night at 12:30 AM when trying to move this darn thing all bagged up, I found myself asking this same question. It's entirely an honor system anyway. Not that anyone would, but you could just put it in the bag the night before the regional and no one would ever know. I could sign a form saying I didn't touch it, and that's the same as signing a form saying I bagged it, just, without the bag. It's just a pain to move while in the bag, and I'd be happy if it went away.

We continue work every day starting this afternoon on our second robot anyhow. There is no real end of the build, especially not with a 45 pound withholding allowance. (and I know we've discussed this in other threads, so I don't want to repeat it all).

To us, all that the current bagging rule does is cause us to spend thousands of more dollars and hundreds of more hours that wouldn't be necessary if we didn't have to bag. Imagine how far all that time and money would go in other efforts if it wasn't spent on building a twin robot, because the real one is off limits by a millimeter of plastic.

The bagging does not stop anyone from continuing to build their robot. It only makes it more expensive to keep doing so. When you build a practice robot, you're literally buying time. We do this, and I don't like it. It becomes a competition of who has more dollars and who has more adults with more hours to spend away from their families and responsibilities. This is one area that there is really a disparity in FIRST, and I say this coming from the upper end of this spectrum. It's easy to tell the others to work harder if they want your results, but not always practical for them to do so. It all boils down to who is involved with your program, and to what extents they're willing to go to make it awesome.

The only real issue with not bagging is, nobody would attend the first two weeks of events if the build season extended right up to the events, and for that problem, I have no solution.

Either let everyone keep working, or (preferably) go back to the real, hard limit 6 weeks, so we don't have this 3 month build season.

Let's not continue this whole build two robots thing. I'm out of space to put them, and out of money to fund them.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

Ok, first the garrage thing: code orange has built out of a garrage up till this year and they are a powerhouse in there area.

2nd: the practice bot does a lot of things. It alows students to get 2x the machining experience, 2x the drivers and 2x the troubleshooting. We have never built a practice robot before this year and it was our most organized and ontime build season ever.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

I never said anything about if you're building out of a garage, you aren't a powerhouse. I did say, however, that there are many teams who start out building in a garage and by that, I imply that, like most garages, they don't have access to the machines that many others do (I don't know many garages with a Bridgeport mill or a lathe), and therefore is MUCH more difficult to reproduce nearly identical parts that are exchangable. I say this coming from a team who did build two robots this year. Two robots that have had some of the most machining and CNC waterjet parts of any robot I've ever helped make. The bottom line is that it's just really expensive to do and we'd rather spend money elsewhere (tools? machines? more outreach?). So yes, students get 2x the machining experience, but, to quote one of my favorite movies: "...[W]hy build one when you can have two at twice the price?"

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

There would be a bigger difference between weeks 1-2 and weeks 6-7, but teams would still go to early events. Several reasons:

1) Teams sign up for events that have open slots and that fit their schedules and geographical reach. Space in events is scarce.

2) You can still qualify for the Championship at early events, and you can do it with a less amazing robot than you'd need at a later event. If you're a team that is capable of building a reasonably polished robot in 6 weeks, maybe you'd be able to dominate at an early event.

3) Logistically, qualifying early in the year is nicer than qualifying really late. You get more time to plan your trip. Also, if your team wants to make significant upgrades for the Championship, you get a longer time to plan that out and execute it without having to focus completely on shorter term, less ambitious goals required to qualify at the regional level.

4) Having a big gap between regional or district events is pretty nice for giving upgrade time after the first competition experience. So I'd much rather attend week 1 and 5 than weeks 5 and 6.

That doesn't mean every team would LIKE that system better, but I don't think it would be a big problem to get teams to attend early events.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

See I actually think the opposite for my team. We typically come up with really good strategy while not building as great of a robot and use it to our advantage. We have won two regionals 2005 and 2010 (week 1) and did not have the best robot at either event but executed a strategy well. Also, our team cannot support a longer build season as we are all exhausted. Just another take from a different team

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

Consider the fact that this is a High School level competition and a lot of students procrastinate. Having a deadline that isn't right next to the comp's means that a lot of high school students can actually balance out the time they have. I know freshmen who have put too much into Robotics and not enough into doing things like homework and have had to get kicked off the team because of bad grades. I know from experience that this community is fun and you can get wrapped up in it. When I was a sophmoron I made the mistake of not properly balancing my academic life with my robotics life and my GPA took a solid hit. Grades went down, parents got concerned, questions were being asked like "Well are you really at robotics till 11 at night or are you off being a little hooligan?" it wasn't good.
First Robotics is a wonderful thing for highschool students to participate in but I do not imagine the founders would ever want to hear students were held back because they got too into robotics.
So yeah maybe bag and tag puts teams without the resources to make a second robot at a disadvantage, but the biggest disadvantage I could see is a team pushing too hard and tearing apart just because they didn't have a little time off.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

Nemo beat me to it- I echo his points with less eloquence :p

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

The only issue we have with bagging our robot, this year especially, is trying to anticipate what position to leave it in OR what pieces to take off when bagging.
Our robot gets shipped to every competition, and without actually packing the rest of the stuff in our 1000 lb crate before we ship makes it tough.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

My team tries to push the envelope with robot design as much as we can. The team is lucky enough to have some nice resources available and a handful of extremely dedicated mentors that come back year after year. I have searched over the past few years for the answer to this question as well and have decided the rules are the rules. The only true answer I have come up with is to design a simple, effective robot using the wide variety of COTS items now available and push during the early parts of the build season to get things done. This theory leads to both the practice bot and competition bot getting done earlier in turn minimizing the stress associated with the ceremonial " bag and tag". Right now it is just a theory because my team has never executed it ::ouch:: .

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

An interesting aspect of the switch to the district model is that of the 'robot access' period. We're allowed a six hour window between bag day and our competition in which to unbag and work on the robot, in an effort to make up for the lack of a day in the pits a normal regional would get us. We get another access period between district events.

It's sort of strange bagging and tagging the robot knowing that we'll just be breaking the tag again in a couple days to resume the build. I understand the reasoning behind it and, frankly, it works well in our favor (six hours in our shop broken up as we see fit vs. sort of 6 hours in a pit broken up by practice matches). Still, it seems sort of silly and does make you wonder why we bother with the bag at this point in the season at all.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

I like the end of the build season...today I get to spend relaxing in my garage, working on my car. No robot stuff. Except working on the BOM.

Incidently, if we built the robot in my garage, it could be far more sophisticated...I do have a mill and lathe here, there are none at school. Although we still have the nagging little issue of getting students intersted in designing stuff that needs such fancy equipment to make.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

Ahh- but this is not the case! If you do your design work properly and make drawings of major components etc. it doesn't matter if you are working on a $100000 waterjet or a table saw. Setup time is typically more than half the battle. If you have the material in the machine and the machine is set up to run it usually doesn't cost much more to make two of a part rather than only one. This is especially true with CNC equipment so the cost of building a second robot is typically just a little longer run time on your machines and a bunch of old components stolen from last year's robot.

Last week I had made this "meme" for my team's facebook page inspired by some funny photos. Having a practice robot means that the long hours and restless nights don't end till your last competition. It doesn't make these things any easier, it actually equates to much more work.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

^This

This year, one of our sponsors was awesome enough to (laser?) cut and bend our sheet metal chassis (we simply supplied the materials) within a few days of our design being completed. We've had various other sponsors help us here in the past, but typically not completely free, and not on such a quick time table.

Is it right for us to ask them to build another frame for a practice bot?
Sure, some sponsors are happy to do this, but to me it seems inconsiderate to waste their time on a copy of the entire frame.

Expanding on that, is it right to use your sponsors donations to build something that is only necessary because of archaic rules?
Sure, many are willingly giving the money, but couldn't that money be put to better use elsewhere in the community (FIRST or otherwise), rather than being spent on a bunch of materials, electronics, etc.

Waste is waste, and practice bots are largely that. I understand that teams work hard to raise the funds, and put in the effort to build a practice bot to make themselves more competitive; but that is a lot of good-will you are receiving, and it just seems wrong to accept it for the sole purpose of exercising a commonly used loophole in an archaic rule.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

As someone who works in the manufacturing industry; how much sheet is in your chassis? a 4x8 sheet? So for say an extra $150 in material you could have had a second chassis. I am sure your sponsor would not have minded at all had you asked them to run two of each part. They had the machine time scheduled, the material mounted and running- for them to have made two more of each part likely would have only cost them less than an hour or so of run time. Instead though, if you were to ask them now they would have to schedule the production time, tool the machine to accept your material, install the material and then run the parts. The setup on something like this is often just as costly or even more so than the actual cutting of the parts which is why many companies have a "minimum setup charge". This is why it is far cheaper per unit to make 100 of something instead of 1. When I run production at work we always make more than we need so that we can keep the extras in stock. Down the road if we need extra parts, we have them on the shelf. This results in massive cost and time savings since we don't have to set up a machine to run one or two components. Something to keep in mind for next year. I am sure your sponsor would oblige.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

OK, repeat after me "FIRST is not about the robot".

They are trying to give the experience that most engineers and technology people face on a regular basis. "Design it, build it, ship it, compete in the marketplace with it". People do not pay for products that they can't get (spare me the pre-order games, iThings, etc. nonsense) and walk away with.

Ship product. I do it. GM does it. We all do it. You do it too. All said and done it goes out the door, warts and "well we could have" and "well just 10 more days it will do ..."

And "pfft" to the entire "we are new, we are poor, we want pity". Look to all the rookie all stars. There are teams with three digit team numbers that would be happy to have rookie all star years.

You are getting an amazing life lesson in 17 weeks. 6 weeks to design and ship a product to the marketplace. 11 weeks of the marketplace responding to your ideas and you get chances to tweek. PROFIT!

I'm glossing over the "well we only compete in one week, etc." Sorry. Your life lesson this year is shorter, next year it will be longer.

Repeat after me "FIRST is not about the robot". It's never been about the robot.

(Oh and this: "What I took away was, Jim Zondag is very smart, listen to him." +1, Jim is a very smart guy, you should be happy he's doing this" )

(Oh and JForbes writes "I like the end of the build season...today I get to spend relaxing in my garage, working on my car. No robot stuff. " +314156!)

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

Hot topic for sure, every year. IMO:

1) For the most part life is fair.
2) Hard work doesn't have to be punishing to be rewarding
3) You shouldn't abandon your family for anything
4) We are building robots that shoot balls

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

I don't have a strong opinion about the bag, but I Need as stop build day. Us college mentors have homework to do (and sleep, and the FAFSA, and life in general). I'm glad it's "over".

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

Well, even with the robot "bagged" one still has to work on the program. In fact, My team just got a Kinect for our driver station.


Something that I don't like about bagging is that I can't work on my robot anymore.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

I believe this may not be an issue. At early season events all teams will have had the same amount of time to work on their robot, and thus be on a level playing field. The neatest part about no bag and tag would be seeing the level at each competition progressively get better. This would also help low resource teams - because they do exist, FIRST is expensive - who can't afford to attend multiple competitions, where other teams get to work on their robot and practice.

With only a few exceptions, including the legendary Coyotes; having a practice robot gives teams a significant advantage. Looking at our twin robots before bag and tag last night, I couldn't help but think to myself, with all these resources used we could have completely funded another team. No bag and tag would improve the competition level, making the sport more spectator friendly and potentially lower the amount of resources used by teams, allowing space for new teams.

Just my thoughts.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

I guess I would argue that there is no good way that I can see to make this competition "fair" for rookies. But I would also argue that that is okay. FIRST, For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, not Fair yet Inspiring for Rookies and Second year Teams. If your team can inspire your kids by building and bagging one robot that is fantastic. If not bagging your robot so that you can keep working on it inspires your kids that is also fantastic. On my team we build two robots and I hope that we are inspiring our kids, and I hope that you think that is fantastic as well.

I can tell you this from personal experience. Team 1983 started in 2007 when I was a sophomore and the robot that we produced in Coach Steele's portable was no mechanical work of art. We could drive, and... well... that was about it. The idea of making a practice robot was something we had never thought of, nor would it have been something we could have completed. We crated our robot just like everyone else did on ship day and we waited to compete. When we got to competition our robot was nothing special, and we didn't win many matches, but we were very proud of the robot that we built. We were fortunate enough to compete at the Las Vegas Regional during our rookie year, which afforded us the opportunity to sit on the carpet with some of the great teams in first. We played with the Poofs, and we played against Pink and the High Rollers, and those teams inspired US to strive to be better.

To this day I am still inspired every year when I see the machines that teams produce. I am also a bit taken aback by your statement that teams are wasting money on a practice bot.

Our team thinks that it is worth it to spend the extra money and time to reap the benefits that building a practice bot can bring. I don't think it is a waste for our team in the slightest. However, if you prefer not to build two robots, don't! From reading this thread it seems 610 was able to win a world championship without a practice robot, bagging on stop build date just like everyone else.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

We (1948) would like to see the bag and tag go, because we only have 1 cRIO, (i know we're getting the new things next year, but we might not be able to afford another one) and in the rules the 45 lb of parts you don't have to bag cannot include parts of the control system (cRIO). Also, our robots aren't built to exact dimensions, its more of, "does it shoot too far? just bend this piece back and shorten that one.", so it would be very difficult to make two identical robots, even if we had the funding.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

Just going to point out that this is the same "poor people deserve to be poor" nonsense that you see thrown around in modern politics, and is not necessarily grounded in reality. Success does not correlate perfectly with effort; if you deny that there is a very large "lottery" element then you are fooling yourself.

It is very likely true, as Dave said, that there is no real way to make this competition "fair" for teams with limited resources. However, it certainly can be made more fair or less fair by certain rules, and I think this is pretty clearly in the latter category.

I must ask, why exactly would reworking the system to remove the benefit of a second robot be a bad idea? Even if we concede that the only factor allowing teams to build a second robot is "hard work," this is wholly irrelevant to the impact of the proposed change on the competition in all capacities except for motivation for well-off teams (keep in mind that "fairness" is a heuristic; the real question at hand is whether the competition would be improved by the rule change). Does anyone honestly think that this change would so demotivate teams with the resources to build two robots that it'd be a detriment to the competition? On what basis? That seems patently absurd to me.

As it stands, the current rules very clearly widen the gap created by access to resources; it seems obvious to me that, within reason, FIRST should do all it can to promote the opposite.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

Sure. I think that evil people deserve to be poor. That way, they can't make all of the evil machines to take over the world.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

I think that you make a "fair" point Eli. ;) However, I would counter with the opinion that effectively extending build season until a teams first competition would do more harm than good. If a team is indeed building their robot in a garage with hacksaws and hammers I would be of the opinion that 1-5 more weeks of build would have little impact on the final robot that competes. It is not their fault, especially if they are rookies, there is just only so much you can do with limited resources.

On the other hand, if you give a team with high end manufacturing capabilities, and a comfortable budget 1-5 more weeks to refine a single robot I think that the end results would be astonishing. The bag day provides all teams the same deadline, and the withholding allowance gives all teams the same opportunity to make changes to their competition robot at competition, or during a work window.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

I'll admit, I got through to about five-responses-ago and I'm seeing a lot of talking in circles. But hey, here's my two cents anyway.

I found this quote in the unbagging-for-demos thread, and I thought it explained things kind of nicely, so here ya go:
Part of the FIRST challenge is not having enough time. That's ALWAYS been a part of the constraints. Doing things like fundraising for the resources build a practice bot are things that some teams do to prepare for that. Remember, even crated robots 'back in the day' had practice twins. This has nothing to do with what container your competition robot is in - it's about making sure all teams have (roughly) the same amount of time to work on the machine that goes to competition. Would you sign up for a Week 1 district if you knew the Week 4 & 5 events meant you got another few weeks of build?

In the interest of full disclosure -1923 builds in a donated retail space - used to work in a garage. We have a drill press, a few different saws, and then just power drills and other hand tools. (No machining sponsor either.) I wouldn't call that a 'nice shop', but we do what we can. Yes, we build a practice robot. We have 100+ students, so it's our way of getting more hands on machines. It's just a bonus that it means we get extra driving practice & tweak time. They're not twins right now - in fact, "Robot B" is a nice way to test some things we didn't have time for that might make it into our withholding.

Just like we used to crate the robot up, the bag is a nice reminder that time is a constraint in the challenge. It makes sure that all teams have (roughly) the same time to work on the competition 'bot. I agree that the unbagging between districts feels odd - but it's a pretty decent way of making up for not having a Thursday at our first two events.

On top of all that - how burned out would you be if build were even longer? I know personally, I'm tapped out. I'm done. It's time to give everyone - our kids, our teachers, our mentors, our parents - a break so they can be ready for competition.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

This is a "fairly" (;)) polarized representation of the capabilities of FRC teams. I guarantee that there's a huge number of fairly capable teams with limited resources that would benefit hugely from the type of extended build time that a second robot currently provides; it's not only teams with 6-axis waterjets who put out winning robots and teams with hacksaws and hammers who are hopeless.

Moreover, I'm not all that certain that removing the bag requirement would have much impact at all on the higher-end teams, given the size of the witholding budget and the fact that all parts they build between bag day and competition can be interfaced with an exact copy of the bagged robot and tested. There might be some complete rebuilds that would be enabled by this that wouldn't otherwise be possible, but much of the work is stuff that teams are already able to do.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

Actually, due to a recent team update, you are allowed to withhold anything, or even everything, from the bag. This includes the CRIO. I hope that not knowing this did not affect your team too much.

About bag and tag: I think that getting rid of it makes sense. I have seen a lot of reasonable, logical arguments for why it should be done, but not many for why it shouldn't. Although I'm not particularly passionate about the subject, so next year if it hasn't changed I won't be too upset.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

I will concede that I was perhaps a bit hyperbolic in my analogy. At this point though we are both just speculating. Do I know that teams with opulent resources will benefit more from a longer build? No. Does my gut say they would? Yes. I can see reason in both sides of the argument to remove bag day.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

I'd very strongly argue that team "lottery" or "fortune" or rookieness has not as much to do with bag and tag success as is being said. I'm going to bring up this build season as an example. As anybody familiar with my team knows, we have a close allegiance off the field with another FRC team in our city. I'm not going to name numbers. If you know, you know.

This team's rookie year was 2012. They're high school is in the wealthier part of our city and they have no shortage of money and mentors compared to us.

My team, 159, on the other hand, is a different story. We are run out of the more middle class side of town. We've been around since '98 which means no rookie grants or big cash donations for us. This season, we lost our biggest sponsor, Ottercares. Coming into the 2014 season, we had a shortage of both students and money.

We (the students) had to make changes in how things were run. We persevered, and finished our robot working and on time this year. That doesn't usually happen with us. We were able to bag our robot at 11:59 and were very proud of our accomplishment.

The other team had been sharing our shop this weekend, because theirs wasn't open. They had over engineered and their robot was 55 pounds overweight. This is Tuesday. They worked for the whole weekend and right alongside us till midnight, taking apart their robot, re engineering, drilling holes, doing whatever they could to cut weight. They reassembled and bagged with no time to spare and still overweight.

Now, I'm not trying to knock these guys in any way. But did their protobot and electronics testing kit help them? Did their many mentors and superior funding help them get bagged in time with a legal bot? They had fancier tools. They had more people. They had shinier wires.

I wish their team the best of luck at regionals this year and hope they can make things work.

In my experience, your team's success during build season comes down to your team itself. While I will certainly agree that having a nicer machine shop for example helps a lot, it is by no means the only factor in a successful build season. The bag date levels the playing field. Everybody gets the same amount of time to build. Life isn't fair. There's always luck involved. Welcome to the real world. :)

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

This debate in one form or another has been going on since the start of FIRST. Is there a magic answer - NO , Only opinions.

Interesting how it keeps resurfacing........and the debate goes on as long as we are all civil and are nice to each other as we are all entitled to our opinion.
as the famous philosopher has said, "Keep your stick on the Ice".

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

There won't magically be enough time when Stop Build Day joins the Shipping Crate and IFI Control System as icons of an era gone-by. I would confidently wager that lack of time will always be part of the FIRST challenge. You can always make things a little bit better if only you just had a few more hours. :o

With the a 45 lb withholding allowance and the games you can play with COTs parts, I'm sure there will be teams that bring an entire new superstructure install it Thursday. Meanwhile we unbagged for a demo today at one of our sponsors, but our best driver couldn't strut her stuff since it might be called driver practice? It all just seems a little bit silly.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

I for one like the stop date. While the students will keep on working it will be at a lower level. No more nights or weekends. The main problem is that the main mentors need the break. By this point families want their members that they loaned to the team back. College work needs to be caught up. Yards and houses that have been ignored need worked on. Prepping for classes and other jobs needs to be done. Winding down and catching up on sleep is a health problem that needs to be addressed. I also miss being home enough to cook some meals.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

This is the point that I think FIRST misses, and does not get brought up often enough. For many of us, FRC completely sidelines everything else we do, for 3 or 4 months out of a year. I want the stop build day to be a stop build day. Currently it isn't. You can keep going with 45 lbs more, and you can keep going on a practice robot. The current system is broken and creates a huge disparity between the haves and the have-nots.

/circles

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

It allows a sizable disparity between those teams who choose to keep working, and those who don't.

We stopped working. You can too, if you want to.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

This doesn't change if there were no bag day. Take a day off. Go for it. Nothing stopping us. In fact many teams already take days off during the build season anyways.

To me it is a money thing. We just finished a third season with building two robots. We fundraise extra money to do this. But I feel it is somewhat wasted money. That money could go towards so many more things... more laptops that students could use for programming, more machining and fabrication equipment so more students could learn, more students could travel to a competition. If we want FIRST to reach more students, then things like this bag-day timeline (build 2 robots & witholding allowance) needs to stop. VRC seems to do just fine without it.

If you argue that in the real world there is deadlines, so too must there be in FRC. In what industry are you allowed to ship 62.5% of your product to the customer.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

Why would the 6 week limit on build time be relevant if you keep working on it or another bot?

I guess we have been pretty naive to figure it was an honor system of 6 weeks and not more. Our robot is in the bag. We will finish our bumpers and wait until our first competition to open the bag.

What value is gracious professionalism to your team? And what other rules is your team trying to skirt?

Jim

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

I've never viewed the 2nd robot as a waste of money. It's always a great tool to have. It allows us to get more students hands on the robot, giving them more machining experience, and showing them how we can iterate offline and perfect those iterations and apply it to the master product.

FIRST can't stop anyone from having a second robot and developing mechanisms offline or tell us how to use our own team resources. They give us a witholding allowance each year to develop mechanisms offline and bring them into competition. One of the better ways to keep iterating and refining these mechanisms is to build a second robot and steadily improve it after bag day. It's not so much skirting of the rules, just making use of the witholding allowance rule.

I've always been under the assumption that design is an iterative process, correct me if I'm wrong. Eliminating a withholding allowance kind of downplays the importance of iterative design. How else do I apply the lessons I learned at my week 1 regional when I'm unbagging my robot from week 5? It's not like I can fabricate everything needed using the crowded machining center at the regional.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

You don't need to be in the "haves" club to take advantage of the 45lb, or 30lb, or any withholding allowance. I wouldn't place us in the "haves" group of teams, more fortunate then others, sure, but not a "have". What did we do before bagging? Popped off an inconsistent intake to hopefully make it better by the time competitions roll around. You don't need a CNC mill and a $10,000 budget to pop a few screws off something you want to make better before you put the robot in its bag. Any team can do that. You just need the will to want to do better.

Do we build a practice robot? no. Could we? Maybe, maybe not. We never tried it. We just don't have the people, time, or money for it. Lack of resources is something we as a team have to recognize, deal with, and overcome. Unless FIRST wants to throw money and machining resources around, working within your limits is something teams have to master to succeed. To the teams who decided to build a practice robot: Congratulations. It is within your limits to do so, and you see it as worthwhile to spend your resources on. I see nothing wrong with this. If I were in a position to do so, I would do the same exact thing. As a team that does not build a practice robot, do I see this as unfair? No, not really. If it floats your boat then more power to you. It just makes me want to push harder to succeed over you. One of the most important lessons I try to teach on 2495 is perseverance, to never give up. Especially when you get your ro-butt handed to you by some fancy powder-coated CNC'd machine. You can sit there and complain that they cheat the system with their practice robot or you can try to manipulate our available resources to outsmart them. After complaining about teams like that myself for quite some time in earlier seasons, I think after the last few years I like the active approach much, much more.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

I wonder if team size correlates with attitude about the Stop Build Deadline. Larger teams can have more students actively involved with building a robot if they build two of them. Smaller teams might lack the manpower to build a practice robot before bag day. I'm just not sure how best to craft a survey in order to get useful data.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

Just to add onto this - it really is about hard work and allocating your resources. Having worked with 11 and 2495, teams with very different resources, it was clear to me that almost any team can accomplish a certain level of success if they put in the time. 11 has many sponsors, many machines, and a lot of man power. 2495 has the exact opposite, all in addition to being in a terrible school near Trenton. In 2012, $500 was a good robot budget for us. The next year, it was increased to about $1000. There's literally nothing stopping any team from using the 45 pounds, so I don't get what the issue is.

Additionally, we have found that having the district model and the unbagging rules, in addition to the withholding allowance, has really made it a lot easier for us to compete at a much higher level, and close to some teams who do create a 2nd robot. There's teams who build practice robots but still manage to be pretty mediocre.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

I think that is "big thing".

We don't seem to have that will, so we finish our robot and do other stuff for a few weeks, until the regional competition. Sometimes we do well at the competition, other times we don't. Life goes on.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

You know....except money too. Which is a huge issue for the poorer teams who can get no funding and whose parents aren't rich enough to supply them with money either meaning that to even compete or get tools they have to spend almost as much time fundraising as building.... It changes nothing as far as the time spent a majority of the time just the cost. Fairness was never the issue here I (outdatted logistics? maybe fairness...no)

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

This is an interesting debate that seems to be ongoing. Since 610 was mentioned here as an exception to the rule, I thought I would chime in.

Back in 2011 we built a practice robot. It was our first year with our CNC router, so we thought it was doable. Unfortunately the new machine wasn't as magic as we hoped, and it took a huge amount of time to build two robots. After putting in all of that extra work, I'm not even sure we benefited much from the practice robot. Our autonomous code that worked on the practice robot didn't work at competition. Our drivers didn't even get a lot of practice time since they were away on outreach trips and march break. The time between build season and regionals is very busy at our school, so there isn't much reason to build a second robot.

After that, I swore off practice robots. I see them as a waste of time and money. That doesn't stop our students from asking me to build one every year, but until our situation changes drastically, I refuse to consider it. We work hard during build season, making the most of the time we have. Then we stop. It's a conscious decision.

You don't need a second robot to be competitive.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

Getting money takes time and persistence,...

If you want to win regionals or at least contend, work at it. Get more money, get a sheet metal sponsor or whatever. Do what is needed to get to the level you want to be at.

2495 is a great example of this, Brandon and Akash have both echoed the fact that the team has gradually increased its budget despite being in a bad school with almost no resources. (Which means they have pushed and pushed to get more sponsors). It's also worthy to note that 2495 won a district event last year (note sure if it was their first)

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

I agree with the bagging policy. It gives all teams an equal timeframe to work on their competition bot. If teams work after bag date on an identical bot to improve it, they have to spend time at their first competition to make identical changes to that bot or swap mechanisms.

The concept behind FIRST is to make a marketable product in a 6-week timeframe, and compete with it. Bagging the robot makes it possible to keep build season separate from competition season. However, you can't exactly shut the team members brains off after bag and tag, so FIRST allows you to carry in a certain amount of fabricated parts for last minute adjustments.

Last year, our team went into our first regional a 3rd level climber. We failed miserably, and between our first and second regional, built a shooter to replace our climber. We spent almost half of the first day changing our robot over and missed several practice matches. It's a sacrifice we had to make to improve our bot after bag.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

If you think teams are just handed money without any work, you need to talk to way more well-off teams.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

I think the point is you're not guaranteed access to money and sponsors simply by dint of hard work. It'd be pretty naive to deny the roles of socioeconomic status of team members and luck in determining team resources.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

Having had this discussion with a lot of folks that I have a ton of respect for, I will say that there are a few different camps and folks are they are pretty well entrenched in them.

The "second bot" debate is actually very similar to industry. I work in Defense, and we often have a date when we ship our vehicles to USG for testing... even the prototypes. Some companies choose to make a duplicate that they can continue development and learn from. Some companies don't. They have the same debate about resources and efforts and...

************************************************** *******
It is a healthy debate to have as long as both parties understand that people have different values and different value systems. This is the crux of a lot of debates with the program. Some teams are focused on program excellence and strive for excellence in the area they choose. Think of this as being similar to the Olympic athelete that devotes all their spare time to skiing down a hill or skating the perfect routine, or running a particular distance really fast.

If you have ever devoted yourself to "a" goal with all your heart, sole, and being for an extended period of time, you may understand the benefits and/or the losses associated with such a strong single minded effort. You learn a lot about your limits. You learn a lot about the details that make a difference. You learn a lot about what it takes to succeed at an effort.
This video does an excellent job of expressing "the desire for excellence":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ok8OHYQdDDI

From the outside, witnessing the performance, you may find an Olympians performance admirable and maybe even inspirational. I would garauntee you that every person that has dug that deep has had a fight with someone that doesn't understand the time being invested, doesn't understand the money invested, doesn't the hardship, the late nights, the blood, seat, and tears involved. Many don't understand.

Some do understand what is involved. They may haev even gone through the process, and found that the sacrifice was not worth the efforts. This is a real result of chasing the passion for excellence. Divorces, loss of friends (cause you never there), grades slip, personal injuries that cause a person to live the rest of their life in pain (physical or emotional).

These hardships though are not universal, and for many that experience them, often it was a worthwhile exchange.

I bring these up, because it comes down to values. It is not my place to tell someone else what their values should be. It isn't your place to tell me what my values should be.
************************************************** ********

I do think there is a lot of value to the stop build day. I do, personally, believe that FIRST would/should allow for some development windows outside the stop build day. I would love to see 6-8 hrs/week unbag time, and do away with the "with-holding allowance". The folks chasing perforamnce excellence will still likely build a second bot. Most will utilize it to make development improvements. Some will not utilize that timeframe at all. This would most accurrately align with my values, and I think it would help teams learn about the importance of development.

With the Current FRC system, I think the "with-holding" allowance is a poor substittue to development comapred to controlled windows of access to the "competition robot". You have virtually un-limited time with a frustrating chunk of the system.

************************************************** *******

MrForbes shows a lot of wisodm when he says "We stopped working. You can too, if you want to." He seems to have a ton of dedication to his team, FIRST, and the effort involved in making a competitive robot. He also shows his team values balance of other activities.

It is perfectly fine to go skiing without going for the gold. You can smell the fresh air. See some interesting sites, and enjoy the exhileration of speed.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

Quite true.

But you're also not guaranteed to build a great robot just because you have money and sponsors. I don't see a very high correlation.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

In most other aspects of life, I agree that socioeconomic status is a huge determinant of success, but I don't honestly see how that can be the case in robotics. Unless team members of financial privilege are literally giving thousands of their own money to their teams, everyone seems to be on a roughly level ground in FRC. You start with not a lot, you develop relationships with sponsors and donors through outreach and communication, and the more work you put in the better your result. For me, it's a far more idealized version of what the real world is "supposed to" be, and that's one of the program's greatest strengths.

The way socioeconomic factors come into play with regards to robotics teams is if the region the team operates in as a whole is economically advantaged or depressed. In those cases, there's simply more access to potential sponsors and donors by virtue of the location. There's not a lot that FRC could do about that, and what they can do (max robot cost limits, etc) is already being done.

If someone could explain to me how "rich teams" somehow get money more easily, or how financially privileged team members result in an easier time finding success, I'd love to hear it. I'm willing to have my mind changed here.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

I can agree with that and I don't deny it (much of my undergrad work involves studies in this), but implying that it is as easy as just asking parents to drop in money is also naive. Also, teams shouldn't be raising money during build season anyway. If that is a problem, they should raise money all year.

I guess I'm pretty biased on this issue, but my anecdotal evidence comes from helping teams from Philly, Trenton, Newark, Texas, Cali, Louisiana, Oklahoma, etc. all teams who thought they were in too tough of a place to raise money or find resources. It takes a long time and a lot of baby steps to create change. I think too many teams aim for too much too quickly and get disappointed when they can't acheive their goals.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

A shop full of 5 axis waterjets and Mazaks won't build a thing by themselves, to be long term competitive you need talented people. As the FIRST program stretches outward, fulfilling it's ultimate goal, the "unfair" factor will grow. As poorer schools from distresed communities become more involved, the disparity in technical assets will become even more clear.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

This too.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

You don't see a high correlation between team access to resources and robot quality?

I disagree heartily. Money and sponsors certainly don't guarantee team success, but they offer a huge amount of help along the way.

Anecdotally, this year 4464 had a robot budget of $1000 and about 7-8 regular students. We were only able to hobble together the parts for a working robot due to the extraordinary generosity of several local teams. Moreover, the mentors made a conscious decision to step back and give more responsibility to the students, which we think gave them a much more valuable experience.

As a result, while our robot was mechanically finished and fully wired on stop build day, we have not had time to debug essentially any of the code. If we had a couple thousand more dollars in our budget, we would have a huge advantage over our current position, simply by being able to test. No withheld parts, no redesigns, simply access to a copy of our robot to test code. This is not possible with our current team, both due to monetary constraints and limited manpower.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

I guess things are different out here in Arizona. We do pretty well without spending much money at all on our robot, or on equipment. Last year we were top seed, and won the AZ regional, with a robot made with a dozen students armed with nothing more elaborate than a table top band saw, and a few cordless drills. With two engineering mentors and a couple teachers, taking turns watching over us.

I've also spent some time hanging out with 842. I'd say robot building and competitive success have a lot more to do with the particular people there are on a team, than with socioeconomic factors, etc.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

we effectively have three people working the entire six weeks, so we have absolutely no chance of building another one unless we completely finish the first one in about four weeks.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

Every team has equal abilities to fundraise.

There are many teams in poor areas of the country with big sponsors, and many teams in wealthy areas with very limited sponsorship.

Sponsorship dollars on most teams generally has little to do with the wealthiness of the team's location.

In my experience: The teams with little sponsorship tend to treat FIRST as "that thing we do for 6-12 weeks in the winter/spring", and the teams with big budgets tend to treat it as "a year round thing with off-season competitions and learning in the fall, and constantly fundraising and approaching companies"

Most of those big-budget teams? They worked hard for those dollars, during the off-season, so that when it comes time for build season, they don't have to worry so much about money.

Back to the original topic of this thread:

I agree with an earlier poster that because of how bag+tag is run, there is literally nothing but my honour saying that the robot was in the bag on stop build day and hasn't left its bag until competition. I'm certain that there are at least a few teams who cheat, and bag it the night before competition and lie about it. As I mentioned in my earlier post, I don't really care if teams do this. They cheapen the experience for themselves, but they don't really affect other teams by doing so, since big-budget teams just build a practice robot and achieve essentially the same result: more time to work.

The bags make robots unwieldy to move, and achieve nothing (plus add a whole bunch of headaches for inspection when transporting the robot tore a hole in the bag, etc). The same thing could be achieved by still having stop build day, and just making a mentor sign off that they've been hands-off since stop build day.

For that reason, I would be in support of abolishing the bag, but keeping a stop build day.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

I think its more being able to consistently year after year produce a competitive robot. every once and a while, a small team will have a very good design and perform well, but the next year, more than likely they wont repeat this success.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

There might be some correlation, but I don't think it's high. It's my personal belief that excellent engineering mentors are enough to overcome any disparity in money and resources. This is the type of engineer and mentor I strive to become. There are a lot of teams that have large budgets and resources, but still don't field winning robots. There's plenty of teams that live on $50-$100 microsponsorships and buy parts out of pocket that do field winning robots. The difference lies in how these teams use their resources and how they build within those resources. Excellent teams will then work hard to increase the amount of resources they have.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

Disregarding everything else about this discussion, (I'll leave that to much smarter people) I just can't let this go without comment. Socioeconomic and demographic disparities between groups is something that will always exist - that's just the way it is. And while no plan/solution/method is going to make things "fair" for the (wonderfully) diverse teams that compete in FIRST or anything else, everyone certainly has a responsibility to understand how those disparities affect all groups to facilitate the greatest amount of opportunity available to everyone.

My personal observations after having lived in vastly different areas of the US: the biggest difference between (and I'll focus here on STEM extracurricular activities, but it's a fairly universal concept) affluent areas and struggling areas is community/parent engagement. Please keep in mind this a generalization required to investigate and solve problems, so counter-examples remain exactly what they are: exceptions to rules.

Things like lack of reliable transportation, inability to take time from work, and household responsibilities are not mitigated simply by "hard work" and "working in the off-season". They are real, persistent problems, and they directly relate to a team's ability to fundraise and prepare for success. When your parent base can't mobilize around and in support of your team, when you don't have the community connections to potential corporate sponsors, and when schools are more worried about simply keeping classrooms running instead of providing resources for extracurriculars, "hard work" becomes a fairly moot point.

FIRST has been smart in promoting lower-bar-for-entry programs (Jr.FLL -> FTC), but even at those levels the differences are clear. Not that there aren't a ton of examples of great teams from poorer areas or struggling teams from wealthy areas (Chicago FTC Qualifier and SBPLI FRC Regional are my personal examples), but simply identifying exceptions is not good enough. We need to find out what makes these exceptions possible and evangelize it.

If it's culture change and opportunities to succeed we (as the FIRST community) seek, sweeping these disparities under the rug of "you get what you put in" is not only unhelpful, it's downright damaging.

We're all passionate about great STEM education and enabling young people to be successful in life, but that passion has to be extended to all corners. And if there are problems in delivering those opportunities, everyone should be aware of them and work to overcome them.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

Last year, 4464 were top seed and rookie all-star at DC. Even with our limited means, though, we were far better off than most other rookie teams I've seen.

It doesn't change the fact that right now, compared to teams with more resources, we're severely hampered by our budget limitations in a way that could be completely avoided if the bag and tag rules were more sane. I simply do not see the benefit of pretending to have a hard deadline when teams with sufficient funding and manpower can effectively circumvent it. If the deadline is to exist, it should be equally stringent for all teams. You should not be able to, as was said earlier in the thread, "buy time."

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

One of our alliance partners last year built a practice robot, and they ended up spending Thursday rebuilding their competition robot. The robot did good, they were our first pick, but they also seeded poorly because of that darn practice robot causing them to spend Friday doing the practicing they should have been doing Thursday.

btw that's a team from a socioeconomically disadvantaged area, struggling to get funds.

I think that each team's situation is quite different. I don't see the bag rules helping or hurting too much...it seems to me that there are a few teams that have their act together enough to take good advantage of the "long" build season, but those teams are the same ones that would be figuring out how to win without the "long" build season.

In other words, it doesn't really make much difference in the grand scheme of things. I personally like the deadline.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

How about this: Build a practice robot drive frame over the summer.Then, you can spend less time on building the practice robot. Then, you can spend more time on the real robot. :eek:

:cool:

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

This is my first year mentoring and I'm fortunate enough to be working with a very well established team. Personally, I think bagging is a bad idea that gives a huge advantage to veteran well-funded teams and penalizes new teams and ones without a lot of financial resources.

At the very least, it seems like exceptions should be made for first year teams and/or teams that have had trouble raising funds. I'd prefer everyone be able to work on their robots up until inspection, that way we can all bring our very best to the field.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

That is the best idea that I've heard so far. us rookies have such a disadvantage. :mad:

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

One thing to note is that not all of a team's funding is required to come from what would be considered as a sponsor in the normal way. Team 1619, over the fall, had a leaf raking business that was student run and organized to raise money. We got the idea from a previous Team Driven (1730) mentor who is now a mentor of us. They do lawn aeration in the falls to raise money, but that does require some equipment. Regardless of how you do it, every little bit of money counts! That lawn mowing is what is allowing us to attend a second regional competition this year.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

Just wondering:


What if no one would sponsor a team?

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

The thing with this argument is that usually, people make it as a way of saying "Those teams that are always at the top? We could beat them if only we were given more time.", completely forgetting that the only way to give you more time fairly is to ALSO give the powerhouse teams more time. Those powerhouse teams? They're already making better use of the time they're given than the complaining teams, that's why they're powerhouses. Giving them more time will only serve to make the performance gap bigger, not smaller.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

I know of a team that builds 3 robots: 1 comp and 2 practice. This allows them to practice and program at the same time. Even if this rule was taken away they would still build at least 2 robots, because it really isn't that much more work to build 2 robots. It really comes down to teams doing anything they can to get an edge over the competition.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

You wouldn't have a team? Or the team fundraises all of the funds for itself, check out the FIRST Fundraising Toolkit if you are interested in ways to increase funding for your team.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

There exists some grants, and some regional FRC directors have access to some cash to give out on a case by case basis, but if your team can't find a sponsor at all? Its probably because you're not doing a very good job of singing the praises of the program.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

One of my biggest FRC related pet peeves is rookie teams pulling the "woe is us" card.

I can think of plenty of examples, from several recent FRC seasons, of rookies that show up and perform well on AND off the field.

2013: 4814, 4451
2012: 4334
2007: 2056

I really, truly believe that FRC does a pretty good job of being able to transcend socioeconomic status of its participants, and that in 99% of cases, the result a team has is directly proportional to the effort they put in, and has little-to-nothing to do with the socioeconomic status of the teams members OR its geographical area.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The powerhouses aren't great because they have great sponsors. They have great sponsors because they have a great program that the sponsors feel is worthwhile to support.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

I agree. After we won Rookie All Star it was a lot easier to get sponser support. With the extra sponsership we started a new team, who also won Rookie All Star. Now mind you, neither #3381 nor #4531 has ever finished in the top 15% of teams.

Even if it is easier, our students still go out every year and give 30+ sponsorship presentations to companies all over our area. A lot of our sponser only give between $500 to $1000, but due to the sheer number of sponsers we have, our program supports 2 FRC teams, 2 FTC, and ~15FLL teams.

The harder the students work, the more funding they can get.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

I can testify that winning Rookie All-Star is not an instant ticket to money and sponsors; we're still struggling for monetary support at 4464 and it most certainly isn't for lack of effort.

I think this is really, incredibly naive; I believe this about as much as I believe FIRST cures cancer or rescues cute kittens. Socioeconomic disadvantage is a deep-rooted social problem that no high-school program is going to completely (or even mostly) transcend.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

Perhaps your approach could use work?

Its usually not terribly effective throwing a sponsorship packet onto the desk of some company exec that essentially says "give us money... because.... yeah, we do this robotics thing... and it like... helps kids... somehow."

In my experience, the most effective sponsorship seeking is done by the students, not the mentors. It seems to be most effective if the students can meet with the prospective sponsor, and have a conversation in the student's own words about why the program is important to them, and what they get out of it. It's also important to demonstrate to the sponsor how the program gives back. Maybe your team raises money for cancer research, or builds robots to help enrich the lives of disabled people, or other community support things. When sponsors see a team that is helping their community, and is visible? Its MUCH easier to get sponsorship, because a sponsor can look at the team doing these things and say yes, I want to put my name on that.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

I find your assumptions about and caricature of our fundraising efforts (which you really don't know anything about) rather insulting. Please, be a bit more respectful.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

If you think I'm being naive, can you show some real data that proves that on average teams that hail from regions with higher socioeconomic status do better than teams from poorer areas? I just don't believe the socioeconomic status of the region a team comes from has much to do with their success.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

I'm not pulling that card. I'm just saying that some other teams may have problems. My team doesn't have a second anything.

I think that our robot is awesome. We'll have no trouble with it, but it would be nice to practice.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

Can you show me evidence that it doesn't? I think it's pretty clearly a less-burdened hypothesis that, like with essentially every other comparable academic exercise, poorer kids are disadvantaged in FIRST than the contrary. Occam's razor states that we should thus expect it to be more probable than the contrary.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

I did not mean to suggest that necessarily your approach was like that. I have seen some pretty poor approaches to seeking sponsorship over the 12 years I've been a part of FIRST.

I only meant to suggest that if you're having consistent problems being successful when seeking sponsorship, that perhaps its your approach that needs work, rather then simply throwing ones hands up in despair and blaming the socioeconomic status of their region.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

Give me a few minutes and I will attempt to compare team zip codes median household income with a metric of team success for a similar timeframe (OPR, using 2008 data?)

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

I'm not blaming the socioeconomic status of my region; there is also a large factor of luck involved. We also are not "throwing our hands up in despair," and are constantly trying to better our fundraising efforts.

I am suggesting that your assumption that somehow FIRST manages to transcend all the pitfalls of our economics and correlate perfectly with effort in "99% of cases" is not particularly likely.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

We're going to go into some parades (hopefully) and maybe get some sponsors.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

This can be done with some data analysis, I can work on it after exams. But think about it - say you are rural enough to only have one machine shop in a 50 mile radius. Low economic status, no *option* to acquire resources. The underlying assumption of your post is that every area every team is in has a surplus of local entities willing to sponsor teams. Geographically, this just isn't true. Also consider that engineers tend to be more economically advantaged than the mean. So they will very likely live in higher income areas. Consider the difficulties of traditional fundraising in areas where there exists far less disposable income. It's fairly easy to see why a disadvantaged economic REGION makes FRC success take more effort.

I don't like the idea that you can just put in X units of work and success pops out. Success is not equal to work inputted, but it is proportional to it. So yes, try as hard as you can, obviously, but there is a lot more to it than that. I would also add that anybody good enough to win is clearly trying extremely hard regardless of circumstance.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

Perhaps we should keep this thread focused on the topic at hand. Their are plenty of other threads about fundraising and the fairness of it that has been discussed extensively. As for whether to have a stop build day or not we would love to not have to build a second robot but we do so in order to be as competitive as possible. The money building a second robot is a waste really when we could have spent it towards another competition such as Robosub or maybe even take more students to championships and out of state trips.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

So:

I've taken the 2008 OPR's for Maryland from this Excel file: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/2761

and Compared them with the Median Household Income by ZIP code for each of the teams I could find OPR data for in Maryland in 2008 from here: http://www.psc.isr.umich.edu/dis/cen...zip/index.html

Since the OPR's in that Excel were normalized and many are negative, I added 2 to them so that they were all positive.

Attachment 16343

I can see no particular trend one way or the other that greater socioeconomic status of a team's location correlates to better on-field performance. This is assuming we agree that in 2008, OPR was a good metric for performance, and that the median household income of a team's ZIP is a good metric for the socioeconomic status of a region.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

[Snipped for being off topic]

Anyway, the topic at hand. I could do without "stop build." We continue working using a practice bot and our withholding allowance anyway, and we effectively pace ourselves regardless of the external controls placed on us. It's not the extra expense of the practice bot that gets to me, as we would build a second robot regardless, but the extra layer of bureaucracy with the paperwork and signing and deadlines. I think as more areas switch to districts and attending 2-4 events in a season (two districts, plus a third district and/or district championship) becomes more commonplace the deadlines and bagging/unbagging will become more cumbersome. As long as "stop build" exists we'll manage just fine and all, but I won't be sad to see it go if it ever does.

Re: Why do we bother bagging?
 

To come back to the OP:

We bag our robots because those are the rules of the competition. FIRST has decided to use those rules, and I like FIRST and the people who work there (like that Frank guy :P). Since they run the competition and I trust their decision making process, I trust that if/when they determine that it makes more sense to get rid of bagging and tagging they will make that decision. Clearly they have not determined that yet, so I'll be fine competing under current rules until they do.