build season needs to be longer.
 

Yep I said it but not for the reasons you think. I brought this subject up to a few people at kickoff. First IMO can't keep a 6 week build season if they want to grow first. We are killing the worlds supply on items and its only getting worse. This year will be the year of no / short supply for pneumatic tires. This issue will also happen again next year to another part or item. IMO if we want to grow first we need to change. While the challenge of building robot in 6 weeks is a good experience not have any parts for 3 of them is not only unfair but a buzzkill. Also how many millions of dollars is wasted on overnight shipping becasue of a 6 week build?

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

I'll disagree because literally most of that happens in the real world.

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

I don't think this is the only solution to the supply/demand problem. FIRST has a lot of options to help suppliers meet demands, warning them ahead of time that certain items may be in high demand might be another solution. Having a tight production schedule, and having supply constraints are both real world issues that companies face all the time. Being able to come up with creative solutions to those problems is rewarding in it's own respect. Pneumatic tires aren't the only way to slay a dragon.

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

Perhaps FIRST could set up their own reserve of parts either through AM or through some FIRST owned store?

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

Who here wants to lay out a million dollars on tires people may or may not want to buy? You can't blame AndyMark or Vex Pro for limited supply. Forecasting is extremely hard. Ordering too much can cost you dearly.

Supply and demand Is real worth stuff. The 6 week time frame is the too big apart of frc to ever go away.
I'm more worried about people not getting electric wheel chairs built on time because we need robots.

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

We got lucky and ordered tires a day before they sold out. Sometimes what helps is timing. It would be neat if for at least one season, FIRST tried to do a 7 week season. Maybe then we'd see the real effect of extra time.

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

The world is not out of pneumatic wheels. I can drive down to my local harbor freight and pick up plenty right now.

One of the cool things about FIRST is that it's an open materials competition. We don't have to use a specific wheel from a supplier who caters specifically to FRC -- we can put any wheel we want to on the robot. And maybe take the opportunity to give students a taste of how it was back in the seasons of yesteryear, when you couldn't buy everything with 1/2" hex bore+1.875" bolt circles, and had to use some creativity to make it work on the robot. The real world doesn't snap together easily.

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

IMO we could just announce the game and never do the bag and tag part of it.

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

That's a new idea

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

Here is what has, IMHO, has been implied with some of the posts in this thread but not actually said. Having a shortage or a lack of availability of parts is part of the real world in multiple facets. First suppliers must try and predict the quantity that will be wanted and then how much in terms or raw materials and wholesale product they need to buy. Second if what you want is not available then this actually presents you with the opportunity to find a similar product that is comparable just from a different source. If no such product is available then coming up with a new solution that doesn't rely on the missing product is part of the challenge of FIRST and having a limited time frame in which to build your robot.

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

FIRST is dumping everybody's time and money in the garbage by not telling suppliers that they're going to need certains parts. I understand that it "adds to the real world engineering challenge", but if our goal is "to make FIRST available to every high school student", shouldn't we try to help the suppliers that make this program possible not waste money?

I've heard people say that no suppliers are given advanced information about the game, but is this still totally true? I know AndyMark knows what the game piece is ahead of time, but I'm guessing they had no idea that the game would favor pneumatic wheels, otherwise they would have came up with the kitbot upgrade kit earlier, and would have made more wheels/Rhino tread parts.

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

6 weeks is a big commitment students. The way it is lined up right now for the school I mentor is that the entire season is nestled in between the end of winter break, and the start of spring break. I'd have to pull a calendar to see if there even was a bigger period of time that could be utilized. I mean I guess you could cut into summer and do post spring break well into summer, or summer into fall. Anyway I'm not a calendar guy but the time period does give use those two important breaks in a school year where our students can spend time with family and friends.

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

The challenge with letting suppliers ahead of time causes the problem of information control. Who do you tell what information and then what is done with that. For example if AndyMark was told that they would need to have available a bunch of treads and pneumatic wheels then obviously they start buying more of this. Now I don't know how many AndyMark employees also serve as mentors to teams, but if they did and they started noticing that hey, where getting a lot more pneumatic tires, or we need to produce and have available more Rhino treads, maybe my team is going to need a stronger than usual drive train this year. Does this really tell you any accurate details of the game, no; however, it does give these teams some time in the offseason to start working on chassis designs a head of time and give them a head start when kick off come around.

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

That seems like a point in favor of nuggetsyl's no bag and tag argument. That plus pushing kickoff earlier or regionals later.

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

Actually what would be interesting is to compare what teams order compared to what they consume through the build season, and what just goes to waste. For all we know teams could be over ordering parts and then going "wait no we didn't need this many" and things just go to waste.
Mayhaps someone should start a surplus thread where teams post valuable items that for whatever reason they purchased but no longer need.

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

Please God no.

As the lead build mentor, I can only take so much robot build before I get fired from my day job.

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

We rescheduled half of our build meetings to the evening for the same reason. That said, I think an open build season would help, rather than hurt. If you can only put in so much time, than you could space it out with shorter meetings over a longer build season. Your boss would thank you.

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

This. When I was on this team and now when I come back and "mentor" (term used VERY lightly), first semester finals fall directly in the middle of build season. You may think that this is an argument for a longer build season but the fact that finals are in the middle of build season and mid terms come around right after build season (actually I'm not sure about that for this school anymore but MY midterms definitely do... lol ;)) it's fine the way it is. Also, mentors are here for a LONG time. 6 weeks is plenty.

Of course your argument is about supply and demand (basically), and to that I don't have much to say. I just wanted to say that any longer than 6 weeks can cause a commitment issue (hell there's already commitment issues but that's a story for another time) so maybe you are correct and a longer build season can fix that issue but for students you want to keep it at 6 weeks.

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

Snap forgot about finals...
Yeah I'm not sure a larger period of time is even available. Either way I feel 6 weeks is a good amount of time it applies pressure but is reasonable.

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

There are so many examples of "leaks" in the non-FRC world that have dramatic consequences for businesses or competitive events. For instance, I play Magic, and nearly every game release there is some major and early leak of cards, which can dramatically impact the bottom line of many businesses. There is no way that FRC could reliably pass on info like that and get away with it; we would soon hear about insider trading situations, with teams whose mentors have access to the info being better prepared in advance for the game. It would ruin FRC. No way.

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

There used to be CD-Swap for this, but it was not often used so it went dormant and the links for it got removed at some point. You can still read the About page and browse the now empty item list.


To the point of this thread, the run on parts that always happens is a good example of real world issues with timing and availability. At my day job we just had to tell a contractor they will likely have to wait 9 months for install on a job since they missed our downtime window in December. I also agree though that the shenanigans around difficult to obtain game pieces, short order windows, etc. introduces unnecessary costs and headaches that provide more arguments for a school to choose a different program.

We have ~3000 teams right now, I wonder how much faster we will see things go out of stock when we have 15000.

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

This concept gets lost to people so much and I don't get it. If there was no bag-n-tag you could spend the same amount of hours working but over a larger time period. You can afford to have fewer meetings per week over a longer time and pace your build in a way that best suits your team.

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

We already know that they do this to some degree. Andymark stocks the gamepieces, builds a kitbot to suit the game, and in the past, has even supplied FIRST-mandated robot components (2009).

In general, I think you'd be surprised at how many people do know the game, or at least have a good picture of it, in advance. Suppliers for game specific elements, the production crew for the kickoff broadcast, the volunteers who set up the official field for Manchester kickoff, all the teams who build field elements for local kickoffs, and so on. To my knowledge, there has only ever been one "leak" of information prior to kickoff, and it was pretty inconsequential. The exact people who would be told "hey by the way, this'll be a big year for pneumatic wheels" already know quite of confidential information about the game. They may know this already; I personally doubt that it's a coincidence that Andymark just happened to release an FRC legal tank tread system, an approach that had been almost universally written off as unreliable and unnecessary in FRC for over a decade, a few weeks before FRC's toughest terrain game ever was released.

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

1) we aren't running the world out of pneumatic wheels. Pneumatic wheels specifically compatible with andymark/versachassis parts are in short supply because they usually aren't this popular. There is no world shortage of wheels, nor will we ever cause one.
2) not much should be spent on overnighting parts, if you're buying the parts you'll obviously need beforehand (yknow, like bolts and hubs and chain and lexan). Amazon Prime also makes this a lot easier. We do spend some money on priority shipping, but it really isn't frequent.

Yes, the unprecedented demand for pneumatic wheels has been an issue, but that isn't justification for lengthening build season. There's so many other implications of an extended build season that have nothing to do with part shipment that it's hardly logical to conclude that, because people wanted wheels, build season should be longer.

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

Could you? Yes.

But there is another concept that gets lost to people. Parkinson's Law, to be exact. "Work expands to fill time allotted" is the usual short phrasing. And what that means is that you will invariably think you have more time to spread out... but you'll really use that time to upgrade your robot instead of relaxing.

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

There are plenty of places to buy Pneumatic tires from. Here are some examples:

http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=16413401

http://www.northerntool.com/shop/too...y_tires-wheels

http://t.harborfreight.com/catalogse....google.com%2F

It only took me about 5 minutes of googling to find these, if you're having problems finding pneumatic tires, you aren't looking hard enough.

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

This is my first year with FRC and robotics challenges. Seem the debate hinges around the drive train. Maybe in the fall the game makers could hint to the terrain this years challenge will offer with out giving away the other subsystem that maybe required.

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

This is 100% true. For our FTC season we seem to manage to do less in FTC than FRC over a period of time that is twice as long.

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

If you think we're not capable of depleting the North American supply of certain items, I would remind you of the great Moon Rock shortage of 2009. Shortly after kickoff, it was extremely difficult to find those silly balls.

I also don't buy the notion that advance info will completely fix all this. I don't think 3" and 4" banebots wheels were going to be all that popular for ultimate Ascent until Spectrum demoed their small wheeled shooter. Then it rather quickly became difficult to get any of the banebots wheels.

And dear god tetrix motors in 2011. I don't think we depleted the world supply of them, but that's probably just because there was a huge stockpile of them because they hadn't been selling well. Predicting that teams would want them for that game was pretty obvious. But predicting that teams would want dozens of them because they'd be burning them out constantly? Predicting that the only legal motor for a critical subsystem would be a consumable item? How many people saw that coming in week 1?

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

THIS

It would eliminate the issue of people cheating by building while the robot is supposed to be bagged. It would also negate the benefit that well funded teams get by building a practice bot.

If they were to change the length of the season, I would want it to be shorter. ~4 weeks or so. Robot in 3 Days kinda shows that. (Yes I understand those people are very experienced and have good resources etc.)

I also don't think you even need pneumatic tires. We are using VexPro 8" traction tires.

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

Making the build season longer doesn't really change anything. Parts will still sell out the first weekend, and then take another 2-3 weeks (or more) to come in, and those teams that managed to get their order in early will still have an advantage over those who did not. In fact, their advantage would be even bigger, as they would have even longer with a completed robot to test and practice.

When we do things right, my team doesn't really even need the full 6 weeks to build - we spend the last week testing and practicing.

The fact that there are constrained component quantities means that teams need to innovate, not complain. Instead of looking at specific part shortages as problems, look for alternatives. Find a different way to tackle the challenge. Thats the best part about engineering - there is no one "right" solution to a challenge!

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

Cause a shortage of pneumatic wheels by posting that everyone should be getting pneumatic wheels
Post that the build season needs to be longer because pneumatic wheels sold out
????
Profit!

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

When the Challenge part of FRC was dreamed up, the challenge was purposefully (paraphrased) "a time too short, a weight budget too small, a power budget too stingy, a size budget too tight, a ...."

With that in mind, it makes sense that a build season that is long enough for steady, but not all-consuming, focused effort by a group of rookies to produce a kitbot plus a custom feature or two is exactly what the program intends to give you.

The program explicitly doesn't exist for teams to build, tweak, hone, redesign, etc. their multiple superbots 24x7 from kickoff until Einstein. Some teams might choose to get as close to that situation as they can, but the FRC program doesn't exist to cause or encourage it.

Remember there is often a big difference between what you want, and what you need.

A small team can build a successful robot in 3-7 days, especially if they plan in advance to do it, and they practice/prepare.

FRC has a 44-day build season. Embrace it, and be proud of what you can accomplish during it (without losing perspective)!

Blake

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

Guys. No. I have to agree with that one guy, I would say that 95% of teams have the ability to buy parts locally, whenever they want. 6 weeks is staying, at least for a while. And the idea of a no bag and tag is ridiculous. Who would sign up for any earlier competitions? Hardly any teams would pass up an opportunity to have 5 extra weeks of building and perfecting. The cons of changing how it is now far outweigh the pros.

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

Pretty sure a lot of top-ranked teams would disagree with you on this. Also a lot of mentor family members. My wife, in particular, laughs every time I claim FRC has a 6-week build season.

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

Mine stopped laughing about that a couple years ago.

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

Dumping bag and tag isn't going to have a chance to happen until the last few parts of the continental US finally roll over to districts. Once we pass a threshold of 2/3 of FRC teams being in the district system format, a lot of switches can probably get flipped.

Think about this, if time extension is such a concern, why not mandate in a district system you have to attend at least one competition before week 4?

Very tangential, but if two champs is such a concern to you, why not realign the season so you fold in district championships in to championships that cover whole super regions or zones of the country?

I think for a small selection of core values and concepts that defined FRC at its inception should remain evergreen, but it's tough to convince me ship day is one of those core concepts if its being bypassed by close to 1000 teams this year.

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

And I'm pretty sure that you mean that many teams that do well on-the-field choose to work beyond the 44 days in various legal ways.

I know working on the Withholding Allowance parts is in addition to the 44 days.
I know that time spent during competitions, is in addition to the 44 days.
I know that legal prep/practice before kickoff is more than the 44 days.
I know that off-season events is more than the 44 days.

I also know that many of the members of the teams that do well on the field are able to do that without letting the rest of their lives get out-of-kilter.

However, none of that changes two things.
A) The reason(s) the program currently presents all teams with the challenge(s) it does, and
B) Investing time into building and operating an uber-bot is by no means the only dimension of being a top-ranked FRC team. Many teams that build uber-bots are good at many other aspects of FRC (and vice-versa), but building uber-bots is not the same thing as succeeding at FRC.

My thesis was and is that each time someone wishes for a longer build season, it's worth pausing for a minute to ask if what they are wishing for is really necessary for succeeding at FRC. In my experience, the answer is usually an easy, "No."

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

For elite teams, the "six week build season" does not exist. They work on their designs right up until championship. Building a practice bot and designing mechanisms that can be swapped out before competitions allows for continuous evolution of your robot mechanisms throughout the competition season.

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

It might be worth noting that many of the elite teams also "develop technologies" for use in some upcoming season during the off-season time. When it comes time to apply those technologies during the build season, they can do it much faster.

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

Amen!

Here's a presentation I gave at the 2012 Hampton Roads FRC Summit on exactly this concept. Doing drive train development during the summer rather than during build season marked a turning point in the competitiveness of our team. It's the only way we can compete with the teams out there with high levels of fabrication resources.

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

I've seen this particular point brought up multiple times before, and I just wanted to put an end to something that isn't logically sound or valid.

To show this, I'm going to paraphrase the same reasons you give in terms of students taking a test.

"We should allow students to use their textbooks while taking tests. It would eliminate the issue of people cheating by sneaking glances at their books while they're supposed to be closed. It would also negate the benefit that well prepared students get by studying before hand."

The rules are set up for a reason, people may not like them, but everyone has the same length of time from kickoff to championships. What each team does with that time is up to them.

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

Another way of looking at it is that a teams accumulated knowledge and their collective imagination might be their greatest resource, greater than having access to money, materials or fabrication equipment.

Though they don't explicitly state it, ToddF and John Retowski's last posts would seem to indicate that one's imagination is like a muscle. The more one exercises it when one does not need it, the stronger it is when one does need it.

Oh yeah, rules are rules. Every competition has some constraints that one has to work within, even the "unlimited" ones. Why not make each match 2 1/2 hours long so that alliances can score more points? As long as the same rules apply to all the participants, it is fair. Yes, some teams have access to more resources, etc. What about some of the participants themselves? We have several team members who are are naturally "gifted" and have "extreme intuition about all things mechanical and electrical". They have "the Knack" and have an "unfair advantage" when asked to do things like designing and building robots. Not all teams will have members with the Knack. Should team members like them be banned?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx6HojLBsnw

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

Thank you for putting this into perspective. The idea that we should stop people from breaking a rule by getting rid of the rule is counterintuitive and outright ridiculous. Here's some things you can do to make sure you can make a good robot, with the current constraints:

• Get your team together early in the fall. Train newbies. Participate in FTC, VEX, or an informal competition to get people acclimated to the competition setting. If FTC/VEX isn't an option. reach out to local teams about setting up a local competition.
• Design something over the summer, before the new members come in. Giving the veterans a bigger design challenge before training season comes around will refine their skills for the coming season.
• If you don't have money, find it. Postage for 30 letters to local businesses isn't going to drain your budget. Make a presentation, ask to bring your robot to their workplace (seriously, do this, it works), and talk about sponsorships.
• Be smart about your purchases. We decided that, with the cost of tank tread, we weren't going to order it unless we knew we were absolutely going to need it, so we didn't order it.
• Even if you can't afford to build a practice robot, which is understandable, make sure you have a kitbot to throw things on. A powertrain with one bumper isn't nearly as helpful as a full practice bot, but it still can help with designing withholding mechanisms.
• Decide what you need quickly, and order it immediately.

Build season is 6 weeks. The time you have to make your robot great is unlimited.

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

In my opinion, the main problem with a short build season is the fact that my school district does finals during the first two weeks of the build, making us very unproductive for quite a while.

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

TD - If you look around here on CD, you can find people who will help you create a good robot, in a week or two, next season. Most (all?) of those same people can also suggest good ways to integrate that machine into a successful FRC program. I think that's something worth looking into. Don't you? Maybe find those folks, and ask them for a spot on their calendars...?

Blake

Re: build season needs to be longer.
 

Build season longer: It would be painful and it's not necessary.
* My students have finals next week and they are expected to keep their grades up... We took today off completely and only had select small groups in our shop both yesterday and tomorrow... We are meeting during the week, but the kids have been instructed to study this weekend.

* AS it is, my kids will return from Champs 5/1 and have AP exams 5/2.

* Mentors generally have full time careers and can only function so long with the sleep deprivation that often comes with build season. Many also have spouses that want to see them.

* The six weeks forces us all to make design decisions based on the short deadline - its part of the challenge. If a team does not have time to build their bot,they should build a slightly less complicated bot..

* More time to build will only create more separation between the top teams and the rest of us. (When I've been at Champs, I've noticed that the traditionally strongest teams have better, more efficient designs and better machining abilities than many of us. Just imagine what they'll have if you give them more time.)

* I can't speak for every time, but I know that a longer build season will not make it any less intense. We will simply use the time to strive to build a better robot. It will not be a reprieve at all in terms of exhaustion, stress, etc.