COTS: How far should it go?
 

This is meant to compliment a similar thread - just adding a poll... "COTS" has come to stand for a huge variety (and level of complexity) of products. Is there a point at which we should set a limit for just how much "prefabrication" we can purchase? If so, where?

Here are some links to specific items that I'm including in the poll:

* Kit of Parts Chassis: http://www.andymark.com/AM14U3-p/am-14u3.htm
* AndyMark Intake System: http://www.andymark.com/System-p/am-3312.htm
* AndyMark Rhino Track: http://www.andymark.com/Rhino-p/am-3322.htm
* West Coast Products MMC Robot kit: http://www.wcproducts.net/mcc2016/
* AndyMark Dart Actuator: http://www.andymark.com/DART-p/am-3072a.htm

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

By limiting the value of any single cots item to $400, First is limiting the complexity of what you can buy.

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

I think that to an extent, COTS stuff being available allows newer teams to be able to compete more effectively. A fully functioning subsystem would be where I draw the line, but the intake example you gave isn't even close to fully functioning, and definitely requires a lot of work from a team to adapt to their particular design and plans.

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

Just a quick note: This isn't a "kit", no more than any Ri3D robot is a "kit". You can't just click the "buy" button and receive a collection of MCC Robot parts ready to snap together. It's a design.

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

Of course Andymark has this. More than the $400.00 limit, but you could break it down to sub-assemblies and be legal. Ignoring for the moment that it is KOP & by definition legal.

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

Actually, no... as you mentioned in a different post, limiting the value limits how the item can be sold and packaged, but not what you can buy. As an example, the Rhino Drive system is $399. However, that only includes the pieces for one side of the robot. Unless you are going to drive around on a single track, you need two. In other words, you are really purchasing an $800 part - in two separate purchases. I'm certain the folks at WCP are smart enough to do something like this - or sell each "kit" by charging folks for each individual piece in the kit.

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

I don't think you are correct here... From their advertisement (follow the link), in bright red letters:

*Kits will be available for purchase, please email support@wcproducts.net for more info*

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

I believe it should be limited to what is necessary to field a robot: a chassis and a drive train.

In most games, a robot that is a driving chassis and nothing more is difficult to find a place for on an alliance, but it's still something. It still gives the team a reason to compete and it gives them something to root for.

FIRST aims to inspire students to explore and educate students about STEM fields. Teams should be challenged to form their own solutions to each game. The challenge is what helps students learn. Inspiration comes in many forms and from many sources, not just a robot that performs well on the field. Teams with few resources and little experience may struggle, but no journey to success comes without a few bumps in the road.

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

Didn't RC clarify that by that he meant some of the custom brackets they'd found useful in making it would be available? Which, might actually be useful to teams who have problems making them on their own.

Otherwise I don't see much more than a bunch of VP gussets and tube put together in a clever way.


And as far as I'm concerned - given that, in the years I've been doing this, and the hundreds of teams I interact with every year, I've come to the conclusion that the majority of teams are woefully unprepared for FRC. So either we make the challenge easier (COTS buy a bot) or we move the teams to an easier competition. Since HQ seems violently opposed to the latter I fully support the former.[1] [2]




[1] I'd support the latter more.

[2] Fact: robots that fail to achieve the game objectives consistently do NOT achieve inspiration. Our goal is inspiration. Therefore our goal is to make sure that teams are at least reliably capable of achieving the game challenge.

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

Please state your proof of the above "fact".

I believe your "fact" is more of an "opinion"

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

Suppose my team shows up at a competition. Suppose we unbag a robot that's nothing but kit parts. Maybe even that WCP MCC.

Suppose we then proceed to win the regional.*

Would the reaction be:

(a) "Hey, that's not fair! You used a COTS robot!"
(b) "Wow, that's amazing, you did all that with a COTS robot!"

*And if your reaction to this statement is "pfffff, yeah right" - then what's the problem??

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

Ironically I am voting that all COTS parts should be available. :confused:

Why?

I think FIRST FRC needs to question what it is and what it aspires to be occasionally as a health check.

I vote we open Pandora's box because the adults and businesses are too clever and basically have already done so.

The issue of whether we value custom fabrication and all that goes into it, and how, should be separate from simply hurting the most disadvantaged from showing up with something.

I can see someone wealthy buying themselves a victory like this. I also see that when that happens it's time for a new health check.

I do place one restriction on this. Under no circumstances should any COTS robot part vendor be allowed to know each game before kickoff. Sorry Andy - if you are involved in field logistics that might be an issue for you. This will hopefully keep the status quo for a bit longer.

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

Andrew seems to be echoing how R.C. responded to these concerns in the original thread:

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

I think limiting bought solutions was the intent of the rule. Other years (not applicable to this year) had verbiage to that effect. It is admittedly an imperfect rule. First has also put loop holes in it that allow things like swerve drive modules & Mechanum wheels to be priced individually rather than a set although one of them isn't particularly useful.

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

You ever worked with a team that consistently failed to build a competitive robot? Seen the type of beating that losing constantly and missing eliminations brings? Ever tried to bring people up from that?

Winning feels good, it's inspiring. Going out and going 0-12 blows. It beats you up and you start to question if you're good enough. You start to think "I'm not smart enough for this" which is exactly the battle we're trying to fight. I never worked with a team that went 0-12... but did come close a few times. And let me tell, as an adult, someone who had, at that point, been involved in successful FRC teams for year, it rattled me. And I'm a lot more confident in my abilities than kids who have to deal with wondering if their house is gonna get broken into that night (again) who don't have clean water to drink or food on the table.

I'll stand by my claim.

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

Why do so many people have problems with Cots? Sometimes I want to take a nap and there is no bed nearby.

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

I do not see what the big fuss is about. There is nothing revolutionary in the kits, with the exception of the WCP MCC (which I will come back to in a minute). Previously, people would look at old video of what was successful on CD or photos from previous regionals. Let's use the case of a roller intake for a spherical game piece. There are only so many ways to pickup a sphere off the ground using the actuators allowed in FRC. A "shaft full of wheels" or "tube with grippy material" on a rotary joint is a lightweight way to grab a compressible sphere without needing precise alignment (remember you are driving from 50 feet away). In the past, someone would ask for help or details of how teams did it the last time we had a compressible spherical game piece. Soon there would be robot photos, mostly on CD, and people could quickly figure out what parts were needed to build the design and order and assemble them. Now there is a convenient kit you can order with less clicks. The end result is the same, roller intake using the same principle as years past, with the exception that some teams who are less good at searching these forums are now aware of the kit and can buy it COTS. It is also important to note that just because you buy the kit, does not mean you have to use all the pieces or make it exactly as the photo shows it. You may choose change the arm dimensions, motor used, gearing or wheel size after testing.

Same thing goes for gearboxes. You are designing a set of spur gear reductions and maybe adding a chain sprocket reduction at the end. Spur gears need to have their centers positioned within a few thousands of an inch of each other. If you don't have a precise way to get the gears mounted correctly they will destroy each other. There is a still a ton of physics and design tradeoffs with COTS gearboxes (1 vs 2 speed, 2 vs 3 CIMs, Gearing ratios optimized for time to distance, pushing max current at traction limit, etc)

We could keep going into all the COTS parts, but the end result is the principles are the same and vendors are making the execution easier and easier. The seven simple machines have not changed, their execution for FRC has just become easier (assuming you can afford to buy them).

On the note of the MCC, it is tempting to say that this will "break FRC" because you can purchase a robot. Let's be clear you are only purchasing the mechanical components, not the software, ability to drive or game strategy. You could give identical robots (with identical software) to teams and it would still be a ton of fun to watch. Remember that just because the MCC or KOP kit does something one way, does not require you to do it the same way. Maybe you change wheels or gearing ratio or the size of your roller intake wheels. Keep in mind that with publicly released designs (MCC, Ri3d), that everyone else sees them and is looking to design something at least as good as those designs, if not better. You can also design defensive strategies that counter these publicly available designs.

Personally I would like to see 20 MCC designs ready to go at the competition with working software and instructions on how to use them so that teams who tried their best and for whatever reason were not able to make a bot that can score points would get to participate in the C part of FRC (competition).

I am going to link to an old reply of mine on essentially the same topic since many of the points are valid. It also shows how many times this discussion has come up (though it is good to revisit it once a year).


Final note - as a team that used to have access to CNC machines, it was nice to be able to get into the details of fabrication with students and make custom gearboxes (even if COTS was cheaper and lighter). Now that we do not have access to these tools, we focus our attention from fabrication theory (i.e. climb vs conventional milling, surface speeds that give good finish, how to cut various materials and how to efficiently program different milling operations with the fewest setup) to constrained design theory (we want to make motions like X,Y,Z that fit in area A and we can chose from Q set of parts that we can afford from vendors 1,2,3)

-matto-

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

Simple moving parts - such as bearings. Seriously?

This conversation is drawing a lot of heated attention.
I see it as teams learning between design engineering and systems engineering and that's great.
I see more functional robots than I have in years. Bring on more components, limit the complete assemblies.

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

What if a weaker team wants to design their own bot? If other teams are using COTS parts, it forces everyone to be at that level or better (if they want any chance at all).

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

What's wrong with raising the floor?

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

This is absolutely true - and a large part of the reason that it is imperative that FRC teams support one-another... There absolutely should be support built into the system - the only question is 'How much'?

I answered "yes" to most of the above items. I like the KOP Chassis. I like having COTS gearboxes and actuators... I overall like Ri3D.... However, I do think a line has to be drawn somewhere. When I look at the WCP robot, it looks like they are selling as a "kit" all the parts (plus assembly directions) to a robot that would be very competitive. They also advertise that it can be assembled in "a few days.".... It seems to me to be too much. What I like about the KOP Chassis is that it gets a team rolling, only needing a little bit of "know how." Then, less-experienced teams can become productive with the addition of one or two manipulators. The description (and endorsements) of the WCP robot suggest that a team with very little knowledge and effort can immediately become a force at district and regional events. This goes too far... If there is going to be a "kit," it should be something that allows a robot to be productive/useful - but not "competitive."


Teams don't need to be an alliance captain to have a good weekend. However, they so need to feel useful in a match. And, yes, having two or three wins out of 12 is way better than going 0-12.

I really don't know how I feel about the Rhino drive or the AndyMark intake system... I do think this

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

You didn't finish your sentence. I think you intended to write " ... design their own bot, and beat the other bots on-the-field."

Why are these hypothetical students building this hypothetical robot? To win a regional, or for some other reason(s)? Or for all of the above?

If the answer is "all of the above", they might be trying to fit 10 pounds of stuff into the 2017 version of FIRST's 9 pound bag.

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

I've always put this metric at "played in the afternoon on Saturday once in 2 or 3 years. It's by no means dominant. But it's demonstrating that they CAN do it. That's how you change their lives. And that's our entire job as mentors and volunteers, "hey kid, you can do this". If we have to simplify the problem a bit (or a lot) who cares? At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter if the student designed the gearbox that drove the robot. It matters if they feel STEM is a viable career choice for them. [1]




[1] And they don't need to decide to go into STEM, that's not a failure. You can lead a horse to water and all that jazz. Except, maybe in this case, we're just showing the horse a different stream that it didn't think was there before.

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

My answer to this is the same as my answer in the other thread:

COTS parts can make it easier to get the initial bit of success, so that you desire to overcome challenges rather than just give up.
COTS parts do not necessarily remove the drive to do better, or to learn more so you can improve the pre-existing solutions.


Those two points can be achieved with custom parts. They can also be achieved with COTS parts.

I believe COTS parts make success, and therefore inspiration, accessible to more teams.

As long as COTS parts continue to fulfill those two points, I'm fine with them.

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

One of the mentors on my team complains about having access to a machine shop & CNC machinery. One day I may ask him if he expects us to wind our own motors or smelt our own copper.

Once you're in industry, you're expected to look at what is out there first before designing something from scratch. You are not (usually) being payed to reinvent the wheel. If it already exists and meets the requirements, it's typically cheaper to use than invent yourself.

I think the COTS items help create a more level playing field. Several of you are now asking "How does that work". Where it helps is for those teams who don't have access to full machine shops and water jets. Being able to purchase premade components off the shelf helps level the playing field with those teams. It's a matter of tradeoffs and picking your battles.

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

I put some of the super-basic parts in the list because it was brought up on the other thread... Personally, I think it would be nuts to try to create your on bearings (or many other parts) for this... It also is meant to demonstrate a continuum.. None of us are going super-natural and mining our own ore (yes, that would be ridiculous) and, therefore, we rely on some outside manufacturing. However, the question as to how far should it go is really an interesting one.

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

Inspiration does not mean that a team has to win a regional. It does mean they have to be able to demonstrate to the world that they can do something, score a small percentage of the goals in a match. It means the team has something that can be built on. It means that they have hope of improving themselves.


I have worked with several team that "make the top 70%" possible. Their robots barely moved on the field. They lost matches where the strongest robot on the opposing alliance sat dead. I can confirm that the team members and mentors (myself included) started wondering if this is a worthwhile use of their time and resources. Some of those teams have still not recovered from the bad decisions they made years ago. I was told by one of the parents on one of those teams that one of their major sponsors had started wondering if the program was worth supporting. Even if the sponsor believes in the mission of FIRST, they might think about supporting a different team.

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

Personally, I voted only for item #1. I've always insisted on the following:

• students must design and construct their own bearings, and
• students must use only stone tools which they make from scratch.

Edit: no I don't.

Oh NO! It means everyone has to try to get... better. Sorry for the snark, but if the goal is for teams to build things with no assistance or expertise, and out of hardware store supplies like string and pvc pipe, I recommend BEST robotics. It's also free to enter. My kids do it in the fall.

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

I really don't care if anyone flaks me for this. I really don't which is unusual for me, but I think what people aren't recognizing is that in a lot of these arguments all the parts mentioned "raise the floor" and do nothing for the "ceiling". Which is kind of unfair, but so is life.
If AndyMark along with the Rhino released a bunch of parts that higher level teams are dying for I think this conversation would be different.

As for inspiring, see 4.6 R18.

"There is no restriction on the quantity of COTS items or items which do not meet the definition of COTS or FABRICATED (e.g. raw materials) that may be accessed by a team at an event."

Is it not inspiring to see a team which looks down and out for the count make a comeback because they have access to COTS parts?

Finally, and this ought to be a fun thing to throw into the mix, isn't this just a different version of the cheesecake firestorm. Who was inspired when a robot got cheese caked? Or in this instance, who is inspired when people roll around in the (pardon the pun) COTtage cheese...

Man I feel bad reading that pun...

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

ITT everyone agrees that COTS parts are a great things, and agree that purchasable FULL mechanisms or FULL robots are not.

There is probably some minor dissent on the latter part, but it certainly isn't prevalent here.

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

There seems to be a lot of talk about these pre-made assemblies helping lower resource teems be competitive, but it depends on who you're talking about. My brother was part of a team who had to survive on $200 a year, not nearly enough for any of these competitive COTS options. COTS parts only helps those who can afford them, and if teams have to spend $1000 to have a competitive drivetrain they are going to have to neglect putting money into resources that will help them in the long run.

Additionally, even if teams can afford these options does it actually help to inspire students? I know I at least do not enjoy building something that someone else came up with as much as something I designed myself. If the goal of FIRST is to get students engaged and inspired in building robots, why not let us design a robot? Even if it fails I can have pride in what I have accomplished.

This is not to say all COTS products are bad. The highest precision tools in my shop are a miter saw and a Drill Press (which I'm no longer sure is true). Having COTS gearboxes and parts whose precision I can trust are necessities in order for us to have a fully functioning robot. My argument is solely to say that I would rather have cheaper COTS parts that give me more design choices than larger, pre-made assemblies that only represent one good option.

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

And I'll stand next to you. Nothing is worse that spending 6 weeks working your fingers to the bone to build a robot that gets crushed all day Friday and Saturday morning. It can build inspiration the first year, not so much the second. You want to draw in students and parents and mentors. "We place in the bottom 5% we want to rise into the bottom 10% isn't a great elevator speech.

I'm one of the few people that voted for everything. Bring it on. Lets see an entire field of robot kits playing. Woody said "It's not about the robot.", so why are there 300 posts about it being all about the robot?

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

Summer CD is the worst...

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

Idk, I thought it was a pretty good CD...

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

I think I mentioned this in the other thread, but I'm seriously having difficulty seeing why people are taking issue with the AndyMark Intake kit. The kit consists of a motor, a couple gears, some shaft and some custom brackets. The only thing in there you couldn't buy previously is the custom brackets (okay, and maybe one of the gears). It's essentially just a package of stuff you'd already be ordering if you wanted to use AndyMark parts to make an intake, but now a bit more approachable so a new team doesn't have to connect all the dots without any numbers. In my opinion there's a huge difference between the intake kit and something designed specifically to play this year's game-- say, someone selling a catapult or a flywheel shooter, or the designs for any of those.

Personally, I'm not sure I'd even draw the line at the WCP MCC robot-- maybe if they were selling packaged mechanisms, but it looks like they're selling a few custom brackets they made and releasing a CAD model that uses a bunch of previously-available COTS parts in an interesting way as a resource. I don't really see that as an issue-- it's essentially what BuildBlitz did in 2014, and besides, Ri3D 1.0, and Team Indiana build a robot using their products every year anyway. WCP just put their design up on a product page instead of a blog post. Maybe I'm missing the point, but I just don't see the issues people are talking about.

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

I did as well for the same reasoning. To paraphrase a person that I respect very much: "If FIRST is going to keep growing, it needs to be sustainable, and not too difficult."

I'd love to be able to watch FRC on ESPN. The only way that's going to happen is if we raise the floor to an exciting level. That happens when there are easy solutions to the problem.

The MCC robot from WCP and the Ri3D robots help with this. I do agree that a line should be drawn when a rookie team can show up to a regional with a store bought robot and beat a bunch of mid-level teams. However, I sincerely doubt that even if there was a store bought solution, that teams would buy it and be satisfied. I've worked with 7 different teams for at least a short period of time. I'm positive that every single one of them would look to improve upon the store bought option.

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

So a general question: The price limit for a part is $400. Say I found a part for $399.99 without tax. Does this limit mean I cannot use this item because of tax (or shipping) or can I still use it?

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

Tax and shipping are not a measure of the value of the part. (Note that sale prices don't count for costing purposes; it has to be the "fair-market value".)

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

Awesome, thanks. I couldn't find that in the game rules or anywhere else.

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

Yes, I have been on teams that did poorly consistently.
Success on the field =/= inspiration.

I will agree that winning CAN inspire, but so can learning from those that beat you.

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

Repeated failure creates a lot more burnout, frustration, and anger than it does inspiration.

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

I'm pretty disappointed y'all went ahead and spun the Chief Delphi Wheel of Absurdity without me, so I'm just going to do my thing:

-Mentors can only be on the drive team if they look like students
-Students should design the robot and force the mentors to build it
-My region sucks but it's better than your unorganized POS
-FIRST HQ sucks except when they do stuff I like
-Samsung Galaxy Nexus is a misunderstood phone
-If your Chairman's submission includes the line "we don't build robots, we build people" you're a bad person
-We're gonna build a wall around FIRST suppliers and make Mexico pay for it

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

- Woo, 125 is good on drive coach. (Brando looks 15)
- Wait, that's not how it's supposed to be done? crap.
- I mean, #WeAreNE
- Duh?
- You lost me here
- Wait, by this metric I'm not a bad person woo!
- It's gonna be YUGE!


Edit... I just agreed with Will Payne, it's the Apocalypse... COTS and Dog Shifters living together...

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

I like this thread way more than the last one... the absurdity is high here. :)

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

I agree. The last two years my team has done pretty horribly, and while I've definitely been demotivated at times the overall effect has been to inspire us to do our absolute best this year. I'd rather pour my heart out and lose than only partially try and win.

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

Getting side tracked........

I'm sure I'll get blasted for this BUT....... if you are constantly in the bottom 5% you are either doing something terribly wrong or you are in the wrong competition or both. Seek help. There are a lot of great teams willing to show their support. There are also other competitions out there whose focus and model may be more in line with your goals.

Make it easier? Heck, I bet there are others like me who would like it a little harder. I'm tired of living in a PC society where we dumb down things for little Johnnie so he can feel good about himself. Here's a little surprise. Little Johnnie is smarter than you think and eventually figures out that you lowered the bar on his behalf. It doesn't make him feel better about himself.

The moment an organization like FIRST tries being everything for everyone they loose their original focus and end up pleasing no one.

Just a thought. I bet the bottom 15% at competitions are the same 15% voting for the purchase of complete robots on the poll. Not sure how to interpret that. Want a quick and easy fix to a complex problem?

Boy, I can't wait till we start talking about two championships again...... Lol

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

Let me make a little adjustment here.
There looks more like the marketing material :).

I mean most of you students are broke anyway so :P.

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

Hey that's a great idea! :eek:
A mostly COTS Championship, and a mostly nots Championship!
:D

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

I actually was thinking that before.
You know what might stink though?

The mostly COTS-bots might still get their butts handed to them.
Entirely undermining the reason we went down that road.

Might make for some hurt feelings but some great metrics.

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

FIRST can lower the barrier to entry while still maintaining "The hardest fun you'll ever have". Nobody is saying you prevent teams from doing the hard stuff.

I would vehemently argue that my team isn't in the bottom 15% (we won a regional and the MN State Championship in 2013 and were 2nd in state as alliance captains in 2014), and I voted to allow the purchasing of complete robots.

I'm 100% sure my team would be too prideful to buy the complete robot, but they sure as heck would learn from it.

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

Wait, normal teams buy bearings?

Peasants.

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

I'd be happy to take that bet and you might as well get the envelope and stamp out now to mail it.

Lots of other people have pointed out that the full robot doesn't get you a win. You still need all the drive team, software, maintenance, pit crew, blah, blah, blah .. to make it. You could buy a full featured robot in 100 $399 chunks and still not be able to win with it. How many robots have we seen drive 3 second and stop because the battery connector wasn't tight.

I would suggest that the 15% of the people in the poll understand that the balance of the world won't move that much by having full kits. Teams that can machine and entire robot out of a single block of unobtainium are going to do so. Teams that are struggling might buy a full kit, but then they might not even know that is a possibility. Maybe we can get RC to give us a report on the number of teams that buy the full kit, but to be honest, most of us really don't care.

And if you are basing your bet on my post of me being in the bottom 10% multiple years in a row then you missed it. I was making a point. I often in my posts use strawman or what if arguments. I'm not above (or is it below?) using hyperbole in an argument. Lots of us do that, it's a common debate technique often seen at business meetings.

But then on the other hand, I have driven home after events going "well at least we were not last!" :(

Next, you can't glean anything out of the poll bars other than it has pretty colors. If you think so, give me a call, I can put you in touch with campaign staffs and political pundits, they love charts that they think have meanings. "Look, people that like cows also like Candidate B, therefor he will win!". It was put together in fun with random levels of quotients in the choices. Even the poll poster (does that make them the OPP?) said so in a later post.

Finally, we all "Want a quick and easy fix to a complex problem?" I want to weigh 185 again. I want to have color back in my hair. Actually, I'd settle for hair. But I know none of that's going to happen, much as easy fixes to complex problems don't happen. Not one person reading these words has thought there was an easy fix to anything in recent memory.

TL;DR - The 15% are not people in the bottom 15%, there are people posting that it's not true. Send my bet winnings to the MAR committee, they can use the money. :rolleyes:

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

So, I am not sure what all the fuss is about. Every team can and should identify what their priorities are. (Especially if they are mentor diversity challenged, or student diversity challenged.)

• Our robot is average, but we know how to optimize every aspect of the game, and we have practiced for all contingencies. [Strategy focused]
• Our robot is mostly a kit bot with some added zip ties, but by golly we have optimized the sensing and path planning code we run, and the robot really does a 2:30 auto period [Software focused]
• Everything on our robot is beautiffully machined on a 5 axis CNC machine, every piece is custom designed, it is a mechanical marvel! [Mechanically focused]
• We are a new team, but we were able to integrate components from many different places together into a working robot that conquered obstacles and did it on a tight timeline to boot! [Systems Engineering / Integration focused]
• Etc...
• Some combination of the above as well...

I worry that I see a lot of "well, if you didn't cut, drill, tap, sand, bolt, wire, program, integrate, test and advertise that robot all by yourself, you didn't learn enough" responses. For certain teams, maybe they don't need the mechanical focus, or don't have mechanically inclined students. (Same for software, business, electrical, systems integration, whatever.) That should be OK, as there are still many aspects of STEM education involved in a FIRST challenge.

I say allow everything, and let each team decide where & how they want to focus their efforts.

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

No Foster, I was not referring to you or your post in any way. It's not about you........ really.

Thanks for setting me straight (he says tongue and cheek), now I get it. The 15% are the enlightened ones. Obviously intellectually superior to the rest of us. You must be republican?

Yup, I can see it now. Two championships, one for the modified bots (race car reference) and one for non purchased robots.

Nationally we have finally figured out that you cant fix education by lowering the bar. I hope FIRST doesn't experience the same painful cycle.

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

Mr S, keep it professional. Politics doesn't come into this.

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

Nobody is saying that we should lower the bar. Lowering the barrier to entry and "lowering the bar" are very different things. The bar is as high as each team sets it for themselves. The bar to win Einstein will always be high.

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

COTS suppliers are just tools of the lamestream media!

RI3D-->3 sides to a triangle-->triangle = illuminati = Real Illuminati Triangle Development!

Einstein 2012 was a false flag!

As someone who typically operates in the top third of FRC and still finds myself struggling sometimes, I wonder why HQ pushes for proliferation of teams that will doubtlessly occupy the bottom 2/3. My team can only do so much compared to stronger teams, and even they can do so much compared to suppliers when it comes to lowering the barrier to entry to create a functional team.

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

Nice!

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

The purpose of cots parts for us is to reduce the amount of work during build season dealing with details of gearbox design and getting into strategic design and systems. We did all the designing gearboxes from scratch stuff in the off season so the CAD team could get the knowledge they needed to effectively design rotary driven mechanisms. Now they are learning how to add them in to a greater machine as a whole.

We have access to 3 different CNC milling and turning ops, a water jet and a sheet metal fabricator and we still by cots. Why? Time. Wasting design time and incurring more delay in getting things back from sponsors make no since. Why do I need to design a custom spur gear box when VEX makes a planetary one that's smaller, cheaper, and will get to me sooner? Sure we could but we spend the time on system design, optimization, and testing side of things while your students are the most motivated.

I would rather leverage machining resources and students brains on the parts that connect the cots parts together.

Re: COTS: How far should it go?
 

This thread has a nice mix of the both serious and reductio ad absurdum arguments, so I'll chime in.

FIRST should allow teams that wish to provide their own aluminum to mine and smelt it in the off season. (Teams that want to use their own wood will have to plan further ahead)

I agree with those who say each team should make the decisions about what is best for their goals. I think (hope) those teams with CNC access still train their students in the use of hand and power tools. The emphasis will differ; generating CNC files from CAD are an important part of their design cycle that is completely absent from teams whose resources don't include CNC. Any team with limited resources, be it number of students, money, machine tools, whatever, should still be trying to get the most for the students out of this program.
Say a very small team wants to participate: If the best way for that particular team is to buy a completely running, programmed robot, and focus on completely understanding how it was put together, or to build a single mechanism from scratch and put that on the COTS robot would that be wrong? If a team with a huge budget, full time mentors, and a hundred students does it, it may still be justifiable. I would be interested in seeing the justification, but if they are confident they are maximizing the student's experience for the time and money spent, and are functioning with the structure of FIRST's rules, should I really be critical?

What is available as COTS for FIRST will continue to grow as the success of FIRST makes designing specifically for us economically viable. This is the real engineering world. Your competitive advantage this week is a $20 COTS part next week. Teaching the kids to make educated decisions about risk/reward and buy/build is not a bad thing.

Oh, and as the programming mentor I naturally voted for everything! It would be fantastic to have the students programming a completely working robot the first week. I hope no one puts up a poll on whether only assembly language should be allowed, or if high level languages and wpilib is still OK. :)