Re: [FIRST EMAIL] Stop Build Day Survey
 

Once everyone is in districts, we are going to have to figure it out anyway. I'm just suggesting we figure it out earlier.

Re: [FIRST EMAIL] Stop Build Day Survey
 

I wrote something very similar to this in my survey.

The question FRC needs to ask itself is: Does it want to emphasize the engineering, including the trade-offs that are required (everything has a trade-off), or does it want to emphasize winning a competition?

Re: [FIRST EMAIL] Stop Build Day Survey
 

Actually, it was 4.:rolleyes:
I'd argue that we worked just as hard as you folks. I'd also argue that there are other teams that work even harder than we do but with results that are much less successful on the field. Is it because of talent?
You brought up some good points though. But let me also ask you this. Why was your can grabbers unbeatable? Everyone else in the world saw what 118 did early on during their unveil and week 1 event.
Perhaps....talent?

Re: [FIRST EMAIL] Stop Build Day Survey
 

I'd call it skill not talent. Talent often has a component of natural ability that can't be learned which is where i think he was making a point that be cause they worked hard they developed the ability and skill to be world champions.

Re: [FIRST EMAIL] Stop Build Day Survey
 

Before you get snarky, you might want to realize that I was replying to the content of your post, which was about DCMP, not district events in general. I've been around long enough to know how they work and what their schedules are like.

You'll notice that, while districts have 4-5 hours on day 0, regionals don't. There's a couple hours for load-in, but that's just drop and go, no work or pit setup. Sure, that could change. You could increase the hours and allow teams to stay. But in my experience, you only get about 2/3 of the team loaded in the night before at regionals. All the other teams are still traveling to the event - district events are supposed to be as local as possible for teams, while regionals are hit or miss. Some teams have to travel, and getting to the regional by 5PM the day before instead of the following morning would mean different plans and possibly an additional day off school. Remember, regional teams are already missing an additional day per event compared to districts!

My point is, there are a lot of logistical concerns to consider when you talk about changing times, and those concerns are likely different for different events, based on the demographics of each event. This isn't a one-size-fits-all solution, as FIRST events are not currently one-size-fits-all.

Re: [FIRST EMAIL] Stop Build Day Survey
 

Interesting point. FIRST's goal is to inspire students and grow to reach as many students as possible. It emphasizes Gracious Professionalism and Co-opertition. Engineering and competition are just a means to that end.

I don't have the wisdom to know if eliminating bag day will negatively or positively impact those goals. My gut feel is it will provide more opportunities for teams to interact outside of competition which is a net positive to FIRST.

The change to a district event structure actually emphasizes competition more than dropping bag day. (More matches... same money ... better use of resources is the theme presented.) Are districts overemphasizing competition?

Food for thought.

David

Re: [FIRST EMAIL] Stop Build Day Survey
 

You need excellent engineering skills to win in a competition in the first place. Yes giving teams more time with the robot would likely help people "win" more, but ask your self why. Getting more time to work directly on the subject of the team's engineering efforts I presume would give more opportunity to improve the engineering skills of the students.

Why bag up the primary teaching tool at the point when we have the most mentor, student, and sponsor engagement of any other time of the year?

Re: [FIRST EMAIL] Stop Build Day Survey
 

I think these are two great points on this subject:

The following is just from my own observations from watching competitions over the years in a district system.

I think there are teams out there with a very low "ceiling" on their robots/teams performance that would not be solved with infinite amount of time available to them. This can be due to lack talent/resources/skill/capability/knowledge or whatever terminology you want to use.

However, I think there is a much larger subset of teams that do have the knowledge/talent/capability to have a high "ceiling" but run out of time to realize the "ceiling" that they have.

I get to watch a lot of the same teams in person at FIM districts and see a lot of the same teams from the first to second event. There are many that fall into the too little too late to make it into the DCMP. Many matches in the district system allows you to iterate and get better, with more time than regionals, but you still need to come out punching or you'll miss the DCMP boat. Believe me, been there, done that.

I'm in favor of removing bag day because I see many teams reach their "ceiling" at their second event and be competitive, when they were barely able to perform at their first event.

Also, removing should remove a level of bureaucracy with the sign in and out that is not value added IMO.

People have shown to be very adaptive to the situation they were given. I don't think there will be the extreme cases of eliminating bag day will cause all the robots to be competitive, or it will burn all the mentors and students out. I just think it will help the middle tier teams reach their potential. To me, it's not that drastic of a change.

Re: [FIRST EMAIL] Stop Build Day Survey
 

I can see the argument going both ways.

No: The districts can be seen as allowing for the iterative process because you test your robot, then make changes. All engineering requires an iterative process.

Yes: For the reasons you mention above, plus the goal of getting to DCMP.

Personally, not only would I like to keep SBD, but I would like to get rid of the unbag times before the districts. Unbag times defeat the purpose of SBD. (Unbag times between events makes sense to fix things.)

I've been on teams that went to regionals, champs, and districts. Districts are the same length of time as regionals (3 days), so why is there a different structure to the unbagging rules? It makes no sense to me.

Re: [FIRST EMAIL] Stop Build Day Survey
 

1. If you're primary teaching tool is at that time, then you're not utilizing the rest of your year well.

2. If you need to "win" because of sponsor donations, you need to reset in the sponsor's minds what this program is about.

3. Engineers have drop dead dates. When they don't meet those dates, there are stiff penalties, typically financial in nature. The lesson of a drop dead date seems to be getting lost on people these days.

Re: [FIRST EMAIL] Stop Build Day Survey
 

Yes FRC is supposed to at least resemble the real world of engineering and in the real world deadlines are common and in some cases there are penalties that can be financial in nature to the company and if the company has to pay up because that deadline was missed the person or persons who failed to meet that internal deadline are likely to come under the scrutiny of their boss.

Re: [FIRST EMAIL] Stop Build Day Survey
 

This is kind of minor point but I haven't seen anyone make it.

Over 20+ years as an engineer in the semiconductor industry I have learned to appreciate good marketing requirements at the beginning of a project. There is nothing is worse than working on a project with shifting requirements and projects with really poor requirements have a habit of getting a lot of good engineers laid off. In FRC the equivalent to market requirements is the robot strategy that drives the build season. I would argue that consistently good teams are the teams that do the best job of predicting how the game is going to be played early in the build season. More build time and more chances to reset the design does de-emphasize this aspect of the program.

Re: [FIRST EMAIL] Stop Build Day Survey
 

I've snipped out a couple of pretty major points.

1) Yes, there are teams that, given an infinite amount of time will simply not be able to build a functional, let alone, competitive robot.

2) I'm not convinced of this. I'm convinced they run out of time because they think their ceiling is far higher than it realistically should be.

3) I think this is more an issue of teams needing to compete more.

Re: [FIRST EMAIL] Stop Build Day Survey
 

Regionals and District Events are not the same lengths of time. Using your team's event schedule, PNW Glacier Peak had load-in on Friday (11 March 2016) at 5PM. Opening Ceremonies were the next day at 10:30AM, and Awards were scheduled for the following day at 4PM. Also in 2016, Robodox went to the LA Regional, which loaded in 6PM Wednesday (9 March 2016). Opening Ceremonies weren't until Friday at 8:30AM, and closing ceremonies were scheduled for Saturday 4:30PM. District unbag time is replacing the Thursday you see between load-in and Opening Ceremonies on the LA Regional schedule.

This sounds essentially like what can happen if you miss a deadline for FRC, wherein deadline = event. SBD is an artificial deadline before that happens, and it isn't a hard one at that. It's just harder for some than others. Changing this would require not just banning the WH allowance but banning practice bots and other development, which, in addition to not having a clear meaning is the clearest example of holding back student inspiration and development that I can think of. My kids have learned and grown incredibly with practice bots over the years, not to mention the difference between unbag time and regional pit time.

Re: [FIRST EMAIL] Stop Build Day Survey
 

Thanks for the clarification. I have a better understanding of your perspective.

I'd rather extend that unbagging rule to regional teams than deny districts that option. We'll agree to disagree on that point.

It's a good debate to have. However, the survey didn't address this middle ground that already exists within the district system.

David