Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

They are places where the metagame placed an undue level of emphasis on because of how much of its overall value was tied to its weight w/r/t withholding allowance and the tight, high level requirements necessary to gain the desired competitive advantage led to design convergence "organically" in the way that mold organically gets in wet drywall.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

;)

Team 1815, 3rd overall pick at GTR in 2010.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

It's not your fault that this happened to you and dodar, but you are making the exact point I was trying to make. I created fiction to respond to the other fiction in the thread.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

And if a top level team had full access to their robot for 4-5 weeks before championships...? I'm sure people could do a decent copy.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

We completely destroyed our bagged robot. it was down to an electronics panel, and two drive rails. The rest we built between week 1 and week 2 and at the event.

This year we bagged an intake and a drive train. In all likely hood by champs we will only be using the drive train still. The intake will probably get replaced and a whole lot will be mounted on top.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

I don't disagree with this but I don't think it is the right analogy. If the self-driving car engineers had come up with a self driving jet pack it would be amazing and cool and not what they were asked to do. I am all for trying to find crazy ways to play the game and coming up with really innovative mechanisms and designs that are fantastic and effective. And honestly I don't think a team that put two robots in the bag with the intent of one being spare parts for the other did anything wrong at all. It's pretty brilliant, particularly for a game as rugged as this one is likely to be.

In this situation, and in pretty much every situation where we start a discussion like this about what is the right way to do things or what is fair in FRC, I think about what makes the competition fun and exciting for the most people. The mission of the organization (in regards to FRC) is to change the culture by providing a competition that makes STEM exciting and fun for high school students. So while I do think FIRST is not necessarily setting out to make things "fair" they have pretty solid reason to keep things "fair enough" that people (kids and mentors) stay interested.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

So the rest of your robot weighed about 30lbs?

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

Anything they built at the event didn't count in the weight allowance.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

2 drive rails + electronics panel weighs what maybe 30lbs + 30lbs from withholding, so that means they build about 50-60lbs at an event?

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

tyvm for adding the emoji

Since I wasn't at that event and I assume you were, could you tell us if 1815 came to the event with the deflector in their crate or not?

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

This is possible, but no one did. They just made variations to fit there existing robot. It wasn't like can grabbers or mini bots ramps, it required a full design change.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

Definitely possible. I watched 836 bring in a ton of raw materials to Chesapeake last year and completely rebuild their robot. They practiced building it at home so they knew exactly what they needed to do.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

I believe you are missing the point. With a bag day, yes it was hard to do. Without a bag day it becomes all to feasible.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

Paynes initial comment was with "Bag Time".

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

Why dont you just drop the "feasible" thing and say what you are wanting to. You are hiding "they will do it" behind the word feasible.

Just because they can, doesnt mean they will. Nor could most.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWHw...ature=youtu.be

Here's 118's robot. Show me your design for a similar version of what they did that is equally as effective if not more effective than their solution. You have four weeks.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

Nevermind, I got it now.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

30lbs of fabricated parts is allowed to be brought in, most of the robot is COTS now a days. Motors, gearboxes, pneumatics, etc. We used some pieces from the previous "robot" but mostly just as raw material because it was powder coated. The total robot weight was about 90lbs last year.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

You are absolutely right. But it only takes a couple successful copies to start changing FIRST's culture from a make our own design decisions to, lets just copy the robot. That shift has already started to happen. For example:

Minibots/233's deployment 2011
Stingers 2012
10 point hangers 2013
Goalie poles/33's hulahoop 2014
Cangrabbers/intakes 2015

You are completely entitled to your opinion, I just feel differently.

My answer to you is: (feel free to sub out 1114 for any xxxx team you feel like)

Also, since this isn't legal for an FRC game, I don't forsee any team taking you up on this offer to copy 118 (or any robot), spending plenty of manhours and thousands of dollars for an illegal robot just to prove you wrong.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

DITTO!!

Sorry to derail this... but I can't help myself

I didn't used to be in favor of this, but these past two seasons have really made me re-think my position. I'm tired of raising money for VEX, AndyMark, and McMaster. Don't get me wrong, I love these vendors but the amount of extra parts we purchase to build multiple robots and to also have spare parts is getting ridiculous. This money could be used to help pay for student travel to competition, tools, etc... But we do it to stay competitive and it extends our build season.

For the first time this year, we planned on developing a "scaling" system post bag n tag. We figure after the first couple weeks of competition, we will be able to better determine which method is easiest, lightest, and reliable. So the "bag n tag" restriction isn't really a restriction since you have withholding allowance.

Bag-n-tag is keeping underfunded teams from being competitive. My team is practicing at a location setup by another team that doesn't have resources to build second bot. They unlock the facility for us and watch us practice, which is incredibly gracious of them, but I feel bad for them... they need to practice too!

Get rid of "bag & tag" / "stop build day"... it has lost the significance it used to have.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

I'm fairly certain this event was Bag and Tag (part of the pilot that year), and I don't know if the deflector was in the bag or not. A lot of different stories went around that year and I don't want to comment on them without knowing exactly what was up.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

... I just heard ... :) :/

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

Two responses to the point that FIRST's culture is a "make our own design decisions" culture:

1. Many teams used Rhino tracks (a WHOLE drive system! :ahh: ) and copied Ri3D this year (as well as in past years).

2. Our team doesn't have that culture, but we might be statistical outliers. We follow Golden Robot Rule #3: Steal from the best, invent the rest.

Best,

-Mike

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

Hey Chuck, it is worth reaching out to Frank and getting a clarification in your team's case. He has said that they will work with teams in this situation to ensure they are treated fairly (just as we were). I don't think you'll have any issues and I certainly don't think you have done anything wrong.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

I also thought FIRST's whole culture was to "create a world where science and technology are celebrated and where young people dream of becoming science and technology leaders" and didn't have much to do with all 3000+ FRC robots being their own special sunflower but maybe I picked the wrong day to stop drinking my Rockstar Sugar Frees.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

To those that think if there was no bag day that there wouldn't be teams that choose a week 5 or 6 event with the idea that they will finish their robot after watching a week 1 or 2 event are being quite naive. There would certainly be some that do that with the goal of copying the top performing robot from those early weeks. I'm not saying that they will all necessarily build a robot that performs as well as the original but it is likely that some will come close and maybe a couple will build one that does even better. I also think that there would be a few teams that don't decide which route to follow until seeing week 1. In the context of this year's game I could see a team building both a low bar and a non low bar robot and then deciding which one to finish perfecting to take to their event.

Even if the desire is not to copy a top performing robot you can not deny that there would be teams that pick later events to give them more time to perfect their robot, driving and code. It could make it quite hard to fill up those week 1 and 2 events and I believe it would be even more of a problem with areas in the district system.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

To bring up an important point, why do teams care that teams copy their designs. Any time a time imitates something we publish/build we get super excited. I think I made more friends in FRC by publishing our 2013 shooter design than anything else I've ever done. Some fantastic teams used aspects of our design and went on to do great things with it, I'm proud of that. Why wouldn't anyone else in FIRST be proud if things they helped design were helping to inspire more students and put a better product on the field to get even more people involved.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

I said design. I never said build. It takes no money to design, and since you're so against improving robots between now and competition, you seem to have plenty of time to make a design in four weeks using what you've seen in this video. This is all theory. So come on, Brennan. I'm challenging you. If you think it's possible to look at a robot and copy the entire design, prove it to me. Deliver a cad model of a robot that other people believe could be just as functional as 118's robot in four weeks and I'll back you on everything you've said so far. Individual subsystems don't count, because those are copied year in and year out, that's just how engineering works. And if you "don't forsee any team taking...up on this offer to copy [a robot] (or any robot), spending plenty of manhours and thousands of dollars for [what could be a legal robot if they used their withholding weight correctly]", then you seem to be contradicting your previous statements that teams *would* in fact do this.

You're spewing a lot of BS with no backing and everything you claim to be fact is all hypothetical theory.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

I can't believe you're teaching your students to steal ideas! That's intellectual property thef... ohh, whatever, it's what we do too and we're not half as good at it as you are and I'm jealous. And I'm jealous that it didn't occur to me to build 3 robots until you mentioned it. :D

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

Hey, that sounds like something fun to do over spring break.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

Not sure what made you think I don't think robots improving is a bad thing. I am merely attempting to imply that full robot copies aren't as far fetched as others may seem to think it is.

As for the challenge to "design a robot" that is almost identical to 118, maybe I will take you up on that offer outside of competition season. My other commitments come before proving some person on the internet wrong.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

Doug, same experience for us! We've started a rookie team in Woodland and Winters over the past two years, and helped them with last minute changes/modifications just before bag day.

Woodland came back to our shop last weekend to take some field measurements and plan out their autonomous mode for competition, but they can't do much more than plan/write a basic structure while their robot is in a bag. Meanwhile, we're testing auto with one practice bot while doing driver practice with the second practice bot!

Personally, I wish Dean Kamen would let go of the "6 Week" sales pitch and work towards some much needed improvements to FIRST's flagship program.

Best,

-Mike

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

#113Days

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

Everyone is getting upset on behalf of the "elite" teams. Are you all forgetting they'll have the time too? What makes you think they won't utilize it to the fullest. If I know Karthik (I don't really, I just like to pretend I do since we met last year :D ), he's probably already got a strategy for if bag and tag goes away. Something with multiple configurations of robots designed to scale up through the weeks of competition or align to what's needed.

I know for sure that last year, had there been no bag and tag, 900 would have walked into champs with something closer to the robot we left with. We called it day 2 into build season that the robot needed for regionals wasn't the same one that could get you into Einstein. Why not let teams build different bots/mechanisms/configurations and be able to switch to see what works best? Think of the batman-robin robot last year, how cool if at different competitions they could have used different portions of that robot!

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

The reason I'm not a fan of in-season "copying" and resulting design convergence has practically nothing to do with a personal desire for competitive edge. Rather, it has a lot more to do with the fact that coming into a FRC event and seeing all the radically different approaches and implementations is an inspiring experience. Seeing a huge array of mechanisms and systems, not just the ones deemed to be "correct," and the possibilities that these mechanisms has is an inspiring experience. Being on a team with a design that the students can call "theirs" is an inspiring experience. Seeing something cool that nobody else thought of is an inspiring experience, even if it doesn't work quite as well as 118's robot. Diverse robots enhance the inspirational power of the program, and I don't think we acknowledge often enough just how much the "mediocre but unique" robots inspire us.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

Here's my take on the situation.

An uneven playing field is a fact of life. In FIRST, just like in industry, there are teams that have dozens of big-name sponsors who can afford to build a practice robot, and there are teams who barely have the resources to build ONE robot. And those well-funded teams have worked their butts off to secure the funding and resources, and to keep it every year. Removing bag and tag won't change the fact that bigger, better funded teams will have an advantage. Teams with experienced design mentors and a history of success will be able to make riskier, more outlandish or impractical designs work.

I guess my roundabout conclusion is this: With bag and tag, big high-resource teams will have the best robots, and smaller teams will have worse robots. Without bag and tag, big high-resource teams will still have the best robots, but they will be even better, and the smaller teams will have significantly better robots, but still not at the level of the big teams. Overall, both the ceiling and the floor for robot performance would be raised.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

Isn't that just called engineering?

I mean, we all use the wheel, for good reason too!

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

That would be one way of trying to compete, but I doubt it would result in more teams being competitive... The more likely scenario is you rebuild a robot based on what you see after a week 1 or 2 event before you compete in week 5 or 6. Oh yea, that kind is already happening.

Many teams already do this... it's called prototyping. We built a low bar robot prototype and after seeing how it performed, we continued with that design. If it didn't perform, we would have gone with a taller bot. But to do this, we had to stockpile a ton of material and pay for express shipping for items so it would be done in the first week. Wasted money.

Are you sure about this? I can't speak to the district system or for events in other regions, but out here in the west, every event is full and teams are having to go out of state in many instances. Look at VEX events. Look up the early events (Sept & Oct). They seem to fill up. Why? VEX teams know to be competitive at the state or national level, to maximize the engineering process of iteration, to get lots of competition practice, you need to compete at several events. The top teams in VEX attend several events and iterate their robots in between. Isn't that a good thing?

So might early events not get the sign ups as quickly... maybe, but I don't think it would be as dramatic as you think.

We need to stop it with this "6-week build season" nonsense... those days are gone. Let's move on without B&T, save some $$, and level the "rough terrain"!

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

If the goal is the increase parity in FRC, removing Bag-and-Tag, weight limits, etc. is not the way to go. Teams are typically strong because:

* They have professional engineers as mentors that have been in FRC for years.
* Their mentors have specific engineering specialties that more directly relate to building robots.
* They have access to high-end equipment.
* They are willing to really work to raise funds.
* They build robots year-round.
* They have a handful of students and mentors who are willing to commit to insane hours.

If you take a team with talented people, good funding and accesses to all the equipment and, then, give them more time, they are going to create robots that are far more effective than what "elite" teams can already create. They will be able to better take advantage of that extra time than less experienced or poorly financed teams. Example: 1114's crossbow can-grabber last year. Had there not been rules about bag-and-tag and weight limits, they would have arrived at Champs with it already fully constructed -and functional. And no, the vast majority of teams would not have even come close to copying that thing.

Sure, the extended time would help the struggling team to get that "cross a defense, shoot that boulder" routine down. It would also give them some practice time. However, the "elite" team would be working on something that would score two or three boulders and practicing full scrimmages with multiple robots. The deadlines are tough on lesser experienced teams, but they also keep "elite" teams in check. Yes, every team would have a better-functioning robot. However, it would not overcome the design flaws inherent to any team without professional engineers and lots of FRC experience.

If we want to truly create better parity:Look to help poorly financed teams learn how to raise money. Help them to find mentors. Take them under your wing and teach them what you know. Etc. In a nutshell, help them to become better engineers and teach them to find resources. Isn't that what our focus should be anyhow?

As for the thoughts on "copying" other designs... If engineers today never copied proven ideas from other engineers, we'd still be in the Stone Age. Learning from those who know more than we do is one of the best ways to improve. We spend time researching what "the best" teams have done in the past as a way to expand our knowledge base... Our boulder-acquirer came from the Cheesy Poof's 2012 robot. Our shooter came from a Ri3D bot this year. Etc. Sure, we had to modify them for our needs, but that's engineering. Want to support struggling teams? Show them what teams like 254, 148, 1114, etc. have done in past years. Much if it can be found online. It saves time. It saves money. It helps to overcome a certain degree of lack of expertise, etc. (Note: We do have very strong mentors on our team, I do not mean to slight them. However, even they admit, that they are not "robotics engineers." Many work at Boeing, so we'd really have an advantage if we were trying to make things fly....)

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

I was there and it was a particularly awesome thing to see.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

The extended time would drastically help lower resource teams because higher resource teams have more time to work with them. We helped a team redesign their robot starting in week 4 this year, if bag and tag didn't exist that team, that won't compete until Week 6, could be coming out every weekend to practice and we could help them iterate on the design. We could hold more in season workshops and practice sessions, we could help make all the robots and the product that ends up on the field that much better if we only had more time. Right now that dream is sealed behind a few milimeters of plastic for most teams.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

I can tell you that with out B&T we wouldn't build 2 robots, there saves 6-10K right there each year, because i no longer have to make 4+ of everything. Know what I can do with that extra money?

I can build a decent practice field and maybe get a permanent facility to house a practice field which i can then invite other teams in the area who didn't have a practice bot before who now do because B&T is gone and help them practice and get better.

B&T keeps the floor and ceiling low for low resource teams, I would know i mentored and ran one during college. Removing it will only raise that floor and ceiling for all teams, which is a great thing. A fully functioning and tested robot is way more inspirational than a robot that you built in 6 weeks but doesn't move in 90% of the matches in your 1 and only competition, because you didn't get any true time to test it.

Another thing i can do with that extra money is increase the amount of outreach my team does because now we have a legitimate budget for it.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

Just to clarify - we unveiled ours in week 1, 469 did theirs in week 2. We didn't copy anything - that was our robot from the beginning. 469 and us had the redirection idea independently, but of course theirs was much more effective.

Sorry to derail the thread.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

I applaud your team's creativity. Although it was unorthodox, you acted within the rules of the game and produced a good robot. Playing by the rules to a T requires a good understanding of the rules; getting creative while remaining within the limits of the rules requires an even better understanding of the rules.

My thoughts on bag day: Part of the reason Bag Day is a big deal is because of the "wow" factor. When a high schooler walks up to somebody and show them a 120 pound yoga ball launching monster they made, they're impressed. When that high schooler tells them that the 120 pound yoga ball launching (or tote stacking, or frisbee shooting, whatever) robot was made by a bunch of high schoolers in only 6 weeks, they're amazed. The other big thing about Bag Day is that it helps even the playing field between teams competing at earlier and later events. If you're competing at a week 1 and a week 3, you won't see much of the metagame, and you have much less time to make your robot effective than a team who will compete in weeks 4 and 6.

In other news, I was kinda expecting some change to the cheval de frise besides a change in hardware... can someone from palmetto explain exactly what was breaking?

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

Oh lord. Okay, first off, 8 pages ago I suggested you guys take the Great Bag Day Debate to a new thread so we wouldn't be doing this in a random Team Update thread. But no, here we are with a Bag Day Debate titled "Team Update 14". Maybe a mod can split the original 10-ish posts posts to a new Team Update 14 thread and re-title this one.

Second, I don't think the question is whether teams can effectively copy a week 1 robot for a week 6 competition and beat the original. Whether it's feasible or not, any number of teams are going to try it for any number of reason with varying levels of success. I think the more pertinent question on this front is whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. I'm putting Allen Gregory down as Good-to-Neutral on this. I'd probably trend the same, though I'd be worried about the long term health of teams that exclusively pursue this strategy. It'd be hard to get students motivated and excited in a program that's fundamentally telling them their ideas are always going to be worse than someone else's.

Someone up thread declared that mentors encouraging the wait-and-copy strategy would be the worst mentors in FIRST. I'd point out that, by definition, FIRST has some of the worst mentors in FIRST in it. This sort of thing is going to happen, and we should decide if the benefits of No-Bag are worth these problems.

In that vein, he's my list of pros and cons to eliminating Bag Day:

Pros:

• No more griping/nit-picking about spares and withholding allowances.
• More time for some low resource teams to work on building/programming.
• More time for rookies to see what a successful design looks like, so they don't show up with a robot that does nothing useful.
• More time for veterans to help some low resource teams. Assuming those teams have a late regional and the veterans aren't too busy.
• Less resources spent on buying/building extra robots. Potentially freeing up resources for other teams and resulting in less stocking issues for Vex, AndyMark, etc.

Cons:

• More time working on robots. My wife gets grumpy enough about the FRC season as it is. Taking away the nominal "break" between bag and competition won't help. I suspect there's a fair number of mentors that feel the same here.
• More time for teams to procrastinate. There's still going to be teams that spend a lot of time doing nothing and end up with not much of a robot.
• Large disincentive for attending early regionals. If you're a one regional team, you're NOT going to want to attend an early event. Most teams in, say, Mexico or Australia this year would have a significantly shorter build season than Texas teams. This change wouldn't bring ALL low resource teams up, just those near late regionals.
• More incentive to wait and copy for late regional teams.

57 is only attending a week 6 event this year, and I would dearly love to have our robot out of the bag and out at Katy testing our withholding scaling mechanism and working on autonomous. I'm just not willing to boldly declare that my current preference for this season is an unalloyed good for the whole program.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

The "we built this robot in only 6 weeks" slogan is so false for our team that I have become very uncomfortable saying it, and we don't even build a practice robot. If you think saying that is a fair representation of the work you have done on your own team, that's great, by all means keep saying it. Unfortunately though, this slogan does not accurately capture the reality of the effort many teams put into their robots.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

That was originally here, but split off to another thread.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

I'm not saying that waiting to see how the game plays out or copying the top performing robot will result in teams being more competitive, just that there would certainly be a percentage of teams that take advantage of the possibilities that arise from being able to have a longer build season than other teams. Seeing how the game plays and what is effective is just one of the reasons to do so. More time to perfect your robot, driving and programming are other reasons.

There is a big difference between prototyping before you know how the game will actually play in the real world and waiting until you see how the game plays in the real world to start or finish your robot design. Fact is that we all have an idea of how game play will go and what the effective robot will look like and many times is does not how it actually plays out. In the context of this year's game many teams may have initially decided that the 5 extra points for scaling isn't worth it. However if you see that the winning alliance did so in part by having 2 or 3 robots scale each match that is likely to result in teams rethinking the importance of scaling and potentially do something like scrap their high goal shooter for a scaling device.

Yes in areas where a lot of teams end up on waitlists like CA (which is not the entirety of the west coast) all the events would certainly still fill up. Further up the west coast in the PNW District we currently see that the later events have traditionally been slower to fill and we often have to beg and sometimes bribe teams to attend them. That has changed somewhat this year since we adopted the MI system of assigning home events and the fact that 1 of the 2 week 5 events is closest to the majority of teams.

For my team our home event is week 2 and the 2 closest events were week 1 and week 5. I chose the week 1 event as the lesser of two evils, back to back district events or back to back with a district event and DCMP, if we qualify. By the end of week 4 there is a large number of teams that either fall into the guaranteed to go or guaranteed not to go to DCMP. If there was no bag day I can tell you for certain that I would have chose the week 5 event instead and there would have been a bigger battle for those few remaining spaces.

Yes continuing to iterate and hopefully improving your robot and/or strategy is a great thing and is what gives teams what I call the full engineering experience. Removing Bag Day does not further that goal. Making sure that teams can attend 2 events is what furthers that goal. You can then make those changes based on what was learned in the "real world" of participating in an event. Which of course is why I'm a huge supporter of the District System and Bag Day too.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

Was about to post the same thing. Saying we built the robot in six weeks is just not true.

And is it really THAT much less impressive to say 8 weeks? Or 12 weeks? It is still a huge accomplishment regardless of how you choose to "sell" it.

You listening Dean? :)

-Mike

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

"Copy" is the wrong word.

If our team has a need to upgrade an ability, and we see a concept that works, and we conclude that we can use it to good effect, we are going to try to build something that uses that concept. But we're building our own version of it according to our resources and abilities, and according to what's possible given our existing robot and weight and space limits. We will put our own sweat and ingenuity into it, and then we're going to spend as much time as possible iterating and tweaking and tuning it.

"Copy" makes it sound like a team prints out a set of drawings, sends parts off to be cut, and then assembles a thing according to pre-made step by step instructions. Then tests it and finds that it works just marvelously on the first try.

Edit: Also, the experience of installing this new mechanism on Thursday of the next event and getting it to actually work on Friday is just *glorious*. It's hugely rewarding. Given the choice between going through this challenging and grueling process versus accepting mediocrity from an existing design invented by one's own team, creating the new, 'copied' mechanism leads to superior results in terms of both inspiration and providing awesome engineering experiences.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

I think one of major aspects of bagging that isn't being discussed enough is that it provides an artificial deadline well in advance of the actual deadline to compete.

This, in combination with the time before competition to more accurately asses what they can accomplish on practice day allows teams to make the tough decisions about what they need to do to play.

While the floor may be raised for everyone, the number of teams showing up at the last possible minute(or after the last possible minute) for inspection with incomplete robots will also go up.

Speaking as someone who has organized (non-FRC) robotics competitions, without bag and tag I predict there will be a lot more no-shows and robots still getting inspected on Friday(or Saturday) than there are currently.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

Have you been an inspector at an event? The number of teams not ready for inspection could not possibly go up. Without Bag and Tag we could also hold pre event inspection nights where volunteer inspectors/mentors come and help point out flaws in robots before they go to inspection at the event. Removing bag and tag allows for teams, volunteers, and the great people involved in FRC to find creative solutions to these problems. Yes we try to do this now but like I have said before there is only so much you can do in 6 weeks.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

Here's my suggestion to improve bag-and-tag:

Cut the withholding allowance to 20 lb SPARE parts. (Or remove it altogether.) COTS items remain unlimited.

The loose translation would be that if it doesn't match what's on the robot already*, it's gotta be in a bag on bag day.

[insert "grumpy mentor" "back-in-my-day-we-boxed-up-the-robot-and-all-its-spares" section here]


*The definition of "match" is intentionally left a little bit fluid, because no two parts will be 100% identical--maybe something got an extra hole somewhere or something like that. I hate to use the "reasonably astute observer" standard but that may need to be what is used.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

Now we have to make any "new" parts at the event, right? So we'll outfit our new pit with a CNC router, mini-lathe, chop saw, and use Thursday to build-build-build all those new parts for our competition robot.

Your bag and tag rules just put us in even more of a corner. We have to waste more time and money to achieve our team's goals.

Why you gotta be like that? ;)

-Mike

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

And of course you'll make those available to other teams to use, right? Floor just went up! ;):p:D



My opinion is that there are two ways this can go. Both have valid points for and against them. Both sets of valid points go either way (pro to con, or vice versa) depending on who is making the statement!

EITHER we return to a 6-week challenge (at least mostly) by cutting out withholding to some degree (see: FRC 10 years ago), OR we go to a straight-out "show up with your robot at the event" challenge (see: FTC, FLL, VRC).

While we're doing that, can I get ChampionUNSplit discussion going? :p

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

I am ALL for this!

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

Here's one data point for this clone debate: In 2014, team 1477 worked on a design that would have converted the robot into a "254 clone". Building that design was well within their capabilities, but the team decided not to use it, considering that the existing robot wasn't too bad and it would be a lot of effort for something that wasn't guaranteed to work. Just like Cory and Adam said:

1477 is a pretty high resource team, relatively speaking. Not quite on the level of 254/118/148/1114 right now, but well above average. The students took their design for the 254 clone and turned it into an offseason project. Turns out, cloning a 254 robot is pretty hard, and it was really buggy because of small details.

I don't think successful cloned robots can be made in the 3-4 weeks between reveals and late competitions. It takes too much testing and iteration to make a top-tier robot (see 1477 in 2013 with 3 regional losses before winning one and then Champs).

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

This will fit nicely in my pit :yikes:

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

Doing that would take the ability to do significant iteration and rob the students of the full engineering experience. Yes currently many teams do not get to go to a second event and thus do not get the full engineering experience. However as more and more areas join the District System everyone will eventually go to two events and have the ability to properly iterate.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

Actually this is a good idea, what other teams have attempted clones in the off-season? I remember Wave brought a robot to IRI in 2013 that was similar to 254's 2013 robot. AusTin Cans had a robot in 2013 off-season that took it's cues from the Holy Cows, Killer Bees, and other robots of that archetype. I've never seen a cloned FRC robot that works even remotely as well as the original. I'm pretty sure if teams tried to clone most designs just from CAD they would have a lot of trouble as well.

Our gearbox this year is based on 1114's gearbox from 2014. It met a lot of our design needs and we didn't want to reinvent the wheel. Even just building that part of the robot with a CAD file in hand took some reverse engineering and thought.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

We all have to keep in mind its more than the mechanical robot itself too. Trying to clone the programming for the drive system (254's spline in auto from 2014?) would be hard enough never mind trying to get any of the vision systems working.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

Our 2013 IRI robot was based off of 254, sort of. We used 254 as a reference but the robot we competed with at IRI was what we should have built had we followed our original robot objectives we came up with on kickoff.

I would say that the IRI bot didn't perform as well as 254 that year, I think alot of that was due to a lack of practice time with that robot. We only finished it maybe a week before IRI.

Which brings it back to the topic of copying. Copy all you want but if you don't get practice time in you will never perform as well as those who get practice time.

A good practiced driver with an OK robot will beat a non practiced driver with the perfect robot every time.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

Bag and Tag actually simulates real world situations fairly well. You've got to get the main piece on a barge or slow ship across the ocean a couple of weeks before installation/use on the other side of the world, but the techs and engineers can bring a limited amount of stuff in excess baggage. COTS stuff can be procured at the install site, or shipped directly there from the manufacturer. This very closely resembles the situation of my department's data collection branch.

As a simple way to prevent further proliferation of things which look like a robot but aren't, and to avoid incredibly long, complex rules, how about these:

• The bagged robot (and spare parts) must weigh no more than 160 pounds (or pick another number) total for all bags. This applies both for initial bag-and-tag and rebagging after any demo, open-bag period, or event. Bags will be weighed by inspectors before teams may un-bag. Any overage is deducted from the weight allowed under the withholding allowance.
• At check-in to an event, each team is issued a "robot button" (e.g. 2 inches in diameter backed with velcro loops) bearing the team number. The robot must have this button affixed in order to enter the practice field or the match queue.

This would allow duplicates of assemblies, but in order to have duplicate robots, they would have to be considerably underweight or have a lot of quickly removable COTS parts.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

I mean, doesn't that kind of prove his point though? The robot is on its side in the picture, when did 254 ever tip over in 2014? 973's wooden wonders were good robots and all, but I don't think anyone would say they were nearly as good as 254's machine, 973 themselves included.

As an aside: I don't think copying in FRC will ever be as rampant as it is in Vex. In Vex, you are mostly using a set of COTS parts that can be put together in a relatively finite number of different ways to achieve the game objective. There is less customizability and design flexibility than there is in FRC. The nature of Vex itself makes it much easier to copy and compete, and removing the bag won't make that suddenly happen in FRC to the same extent it happens in Vex.

With the argument that a powerhouse team would just build several different robots and give them out to alliance partners or whatever, when has that ever happened in Vex? That should be really easy in Vex, right?

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

Absolutely right! The struggle is real:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/10/us/mar...ss_igoogle_cnn

And to think, all those NASA dudes had was a rover in a bag that they couldn't test with back here on Earth... Good thing they had Matt Damon to science the crap out of the firmware for them.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

Mandating that inspectors weigh bags first puts a very large and unnecessary burden on them, particularly in the early hours when we're already having to deal with all of the teams that forgot their lockup form, have a torn bag, or (my favorite) bagged their lockup form inside with the robot. In a district model where our goal is to get robots inspected ASAP it's even less viable. That said using a weight limit is a viable approach.

I would make the following rule changes:

1. The maximum weight of the bag may be no more than 130 pounds. Bumpers do not count as part of the bag weight limit.

2. Bags will be weighed at the discretion of the LRI. It is recommended that teams weigh their bags and mark the amount on the sheet. In the event that a bag is found to be overweight teams will be instructed to remove items until the weight is met. Those items will be quarantined until the end of the event.

3. Robots that have not passed inspection may not be powered outside of the pit area. This includes practice fields.

4. COTS items assembled in accordance with the manufacturer's specifications are not considered prefabricated items. The assembly may only consist of components purchased as part of a single COTS item.

These changes would allow teams to ship a robot (even with bumpers on) with 10 pounds of leeway, and not place an undue burden on the inspectors unless the LRI sees something that deserves attention. The requirement that robots pass inspection before being powered on outside of their pits eliminates the utility of having two robots and also is a logical safety requirement. The COTS change provides a bit more flexibility to teams in terms of their spares, and also eliminates what I consider to be a fairly silly rule.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

it could for sure be of some use!

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

I'd vote for remove it altogether.

Define match as "functionally equivalent"
Also, limit the weight of the bag to 200 LBS.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

It's not really a fair entry into this argument either.

It was a robot designed in ~ 2 hours and made in a day out of 2x4s that was top heavy as heck.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

This.

Believe it or not, teams will attempt this.

But the argument is, you either prefer bag-and-tag and it prevents extreme reiteration or you don't prefer it and put up with the inevitable cons it brings, such as this.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

Who's going to perform better though - the team that copied a robot off of a few photos in 5 weeks, or the team that built their own robot in 12 weeks, with several iterations and weeks of drive practice and tuning?

Being good at FRC consists of so, so much more than the actual design of the robot. Too much emphasis is placed on the high level robot concept being the absolute key to success, when it is ALL in the implementation and the details.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

Your point assumes that "extreme reiteration", or just outright copy-ing, is a "con".

I don't think it is. Copy away!

For anyone looking to copy our 2016 robot, good luck ;)

-Mike

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

Oh I totally agree with you. My point was simply that teams will do it.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

Currently teams are allowed to play on the practice field or regulation field during their designated practice matches without passing inspection. At the risk of some additional paperwork, what if inspection were split into two parts?

• Pre-inspection would only include major safety items, such as sharp or otherwise unsafe parts, insulated connections, no electrical connection to frame, many if not all of the pneumatics rules, and probably a few others.
• Full inspection would begin with or build on on pre-inspection and also include wiring details, final weigh-in, bumper rules, frame perimeter measurement

A robot must pass pre-inspection to power up on the practice fields or for scheduled practice matches, and both pre-inspection and full inspection for the filler line or competition matches. Only one pre-inspected or fully inspected robot allowed per team.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

Not exactly. Some may view it as a con, others may view it as a pro. Either way we're both right.

I guess the point I was trying to make was either you get rid of bag and tag and some will attempt to copy/reiterate an existing design or you keep it and people continue to worry about other teams having enough resources to build practice robots....

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

This is actually what I thought the update was going to be based on some brief conversations with Jon and Frank in Palmetto... I'm sad that it didn't go this way but it is what it is.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

It seems to be hard enough to get teams to inspect the first time. Asking them to do it twice. Especially at District events where we don't have a full practice day to get it done.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

From the Manual:

Many years ago as a new LRI, I tried to implement what Gus suggested. Turned out it was too confusing for teams and volunteers alike. The Manual (quoted above) has it right, IMHO.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

It is however a decent indication that if 973 can build a semi competitive clone in a day, a much more average team should be able to do it in a few weeks?

1477 chimed in saying that they tried to do it and weren't overly successful, so maybe less teams than I thought would be able to pull the copy off.

2826 did a copy of 2013 254, which was (lets be honest here) a ridiculously complex robot. I dunno what timeline that was, but probably a bunch of time.

Of course all these examples show that the copies aren't as good as the originals, but that was the premise from the start anyways, so not sure why we are still commentating on it. The point is that it could very well up their competitiveness.

So then what don't I like about it then? Seems like a win win?

In my experience in other programs (albeit easier to modify and lower budget) teams have this need to be all secretive of their designs and compete late. Someone brought up VEX competitions filling early september and october. Basically those aren't any of the good teams. And usually whenever a design gets revealed/leaked before world championships it means it was done against the team's will/it was an old design and they already have a much better robot. A good example of this is the New Zealand vex teams which are incredibly strong and consistently put out championship winning worthy robots. They don't stream besides like their national championship very late in the season. Robots and teams there feel very distant to me at least. It is worth saying that there are some regions with webcasts and such do stream, Ontario being one of the main ones. I think the culture is slightly shifting into more of a sharing one too, but i'm not too involved in the VEX community anymore to be a great judge of that.

Plenty of teams already don't reveal anything until they absolutely have to keep their competitive edge. eg 1114, 2056, 2826?, 1678? I'm sure there are others, and for 2826 and 1678, I don't actually know those are mostly guesses in general they tease/reveal later in the season. Not that I don't understand the reasoning behind it and see how it's advantageous, it's just that I really enjoy seeing the robots in a polished way like 118 and so many other teams that put out videos earlier. Removing bag day I think would cause more teams to do this.

Copying is smart. Why re-invent the wheel? I just don't love the secretive nature culture that results from it, and I would prefer FRC not to be like this.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

I guess I'll chime in since I was one of the people involved with that robot. That robot was inspired by 254 yes, but mostly just the climber. In fact that robot was 33, 341, and 254 all thrown together with a 2826 twist. We did in fact copy, and yes it is smart. But I would never do that again, much less in 4 weeks (yes 4 weeks from start of design to competing at iri). The most important thing we learned however is what we were capable of. We saw what these other guys were doing and figured out how to do it ourselves.

And in regards to the "secretive nature culture", I can't count the number of times teams like 1114, 254, 118 and so on have been open to explaining their designs. Thats why Wave is at where we are today, because these teams were open, and gracious to show us everything they had!

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

I would be worried about the paperwork and also keeping track of everything, but it might be viable. The front of the inspection sheet could be used to handle safety and critical features, while the rear of the inspection should could be used to handle game-related requirements.

I would consider bumper rules to be a safety/critical feature, as I would not want a robot with illegal bumpers interacting with other teams.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

I don't think that's what he meant about secrecy. He is saying that if teams don't think copying is a big deal, why don't the big teams reveal at bag day or even earlier. I'm sure every team has their reasons but if you asked some of the teams you mentioned or other teams of the same caliber to explain their designs before they revealed it, I would guess you get a different response.

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

Pretty much yes, now of course there are other factors like finishing the robot is more important than making a video. (probably the most common reason) Was just stating that some teams intentionally hold off on their reveals till later to maintain a competitive edge. (which is smart)

Re: Team Update 14 (2016)
 

We don't publicly show our robot, but we show it to our friends on other teams no problem, and that sharing goes both ways for the most part.

We also don't really ever get done in time to have a release video in a "normal" time.

We had the robot fully done in CAD the Saturday before bag day this year. It was assembled as much as possible at 11:50 pm on Bag night. The programmers had it for 5 min to do a quick systems test and then we weighed it and threw it in a bag.

Our release videos are done with our practice robot.