Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

I have been thinking more about ways to increase the low to mid level teams competitiveness in the FRC. Eliminating Bag Day, District Events ETC, I believe have this goal in mind as well.

Another thing we may want to consider is releasing Some/All of the team specific drawings a week before kickoff. I believe this would, among other things;

1: Give teams more time during build season to focus on building robots. The 2016 game alone required weeks for some teams to build field elements.

2. Improve the quality of the Prototyping and eventually robots as early designs will have a better chance of success with quality field elements that weren't built during the initial build season rush.

3. Eliminate the built in advantage of some teams, mine included, that are involved in hosting kickoffs and have access to pre-built field elements immediately after kickoff.

4. The FRC community can collaborate on best practices to build elements. Issues like the 2013 team drawing Pyramid could be avoided with crowd sourced solutions before the six week build season is impacted.

I think the argument that the secrecy of the game must be maintained is a bit of an antiquated notion. I believe that most teams will wait until the actual game rules are released before spending time and money guessing at the game. And honestly, so what if they do. I think any potential benefits outweigh the drawbacks.

I am very interested in the opinion of others. Thoughts?

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

I would be rather hesitant to release team field drawings early. However, I do believe that there are a number of steps FIRST HQ can take without doing that in order to make teams' life easier.

In no particular order:

• Realize that teams have to interpret the drawings--and then design for manufacturability. For example, any angle that needs better than whole-number precision should probably be spec'd as two different linear dimensions that will allow the angle to be right, or very close to right. (2015). It's a lot easier to build stuff if you can actually read the drawings and they're easy to build. This right here is huge.
• Not have quite so many field elements. "Duh." Honestly, there were only about 20 separate chunks of a team field in 2016... and roughly three in 2014. 2015 was partway in between, but see above.
• Have a "quick-and-dirty" version for many elements. See also, the mimic targets that a lot of teams brought to check shooters. (Or, for 2014: Gimme a string/sports net and two posts that are tall enough. Actually, gimme 2, one for the high goals and one for the truss.) If teams want to build their own "real" field, have the drawings available. That way, teams can build the quick-and-dirty, and later they can build the not-so-quick at their own pace if they think they'll actually need it.
• Build A SET at HQ, for HQ testing. And then, of course, pass on any knowledge gained by such items to teams. Woulda been really nice to practice the drawbridge on lexan, for example. But most teams built wood. Lexan behaves much differently. Ditto for Portcullis.
• Don't change drawings mid-season because your vendor couldn't do what you wanted them to...:o
• Put ALL the parts needed for an assembly with the assembly in the drawing. It does help if you don't have to go chasing down to 20 pages later.

There are a number of improvements to the process, yes. I don't see an early release being one of them, TBH. Though having the material list coming out early, or a partial material list, would be helpful in checking for supplies on-hand.

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

I think this is a great idea. I've been involved with building the field for the UMN Kickoff for the last couple years, and honestly, even as field builders we often have no real idea of what the game is. Most of our hints come from the names of the drawings, and that's not enough to really let us figure it out. If they were completely anonymous numbers for all the parts, it would be even harder to guess.

I feel like FIRST has been getting themselves all worked up over the secrecy of the field, and the more they clamp down, the less benefits they're going to see from the field builder program. Perhaps opening the door a bit is what FRC really needs, instead of desperately trying to shut everyone out.

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

Uh, please, no.

First of all, we try to consider our game strategy before we build field elements. This year, we did not build a Sally Port or Draw Bridge, because we didn't plan to cross those defenses, and there are probably plenty of low-goal teams that never bothered to build a tower above about four feet, saving a lot of heartache. In 2013 we only put a full set of rungs on one face of our pyramid, and we didn't care about the corners, because that's all we needed. If we'd waited a bit longer before starting, we probably would have built something that didn't look like a pyramid at all, just three bars between two wooden ladder frames. (This is what started us prioritizing goals for field elements, BTW.)

Besides, looking at field elements, it's usually straightforward to figure out what you do with them. The low bar, rough terrain, and ramparts are all clearly obstacles to be driven over/under. The pyriamid goal was recognizable to players of Frisbee golf. The size and shape of the Aerial Assist Goals certainly suggested the size and shape of the game piece. Of course, seeing the field, most of us would have ALSO expected a hanging endgame to Aerial Assist.

Once you figure that out, you will have teams begin prototyping likely functions, increasing the disparity between high-resource and low-resource teams. Once the field drawings for Stronghold were released under this proposal, 233 and 254 and 1114 will be building drive trains, mid-level teams will order pneumatic wheels and/or tank tread and do some CAD work, low resource teams will build field elements they might never use, and rookie and really-low resource teams would fall farther behind.

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

Justin,

For this non-Chairmans part of competing, can you be more specific about the segment of the on-the-field teams are you thinking about?

What metric do you have in mind when you write "low to mid-level".

"Competitiveness" means several different things to different people, and "Teams" covers a broad spectrum. Help the conversation avoid diving down the wrong rabbit holes by adding some detail about who you have in mind.

Blake

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

They can be released on time if they're readable and not impossible to build. I'd rather they spend the time giving the drawings to an experienced builder to actually try and build the wood versions they come up with using only the drawings. That way they'll have a good chance to spot the glaring flaws, missing dimensions, etc.

We only need them early if they continue their "standards" of "quality" that they have been meeting in the years past.

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

Confused about what you don't understand here...


-----
What does the "non-chairman's" phrase mean? Why do you jump to critique potential ideas with tangible goals to help teams and our program? And why do I get the feeling you don't care anything about actually building robots...?

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

I agree with this wholeheartedly. Building the 2015 and 2016 fields were a pretty significant drain on 5188's resources (mainly in manpower), and didn't really get done until very late in build season (~Week 5). We ended up on relying on teams who had access to reasonably accurate field elements from hosting kickoff events and were gracious enough to share their prototyping results with us.

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

I would like for the drawings to include a simple and easy-to-read bill of materials for lumber and whatnot, so I can just go to the lumber yard and buy it, without having to add it all up from eleventeen different drawing sheets.

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

This brings up the unspoken advantage that kickoff host teams have over the rest of us. They show of the field elements at kick off, then get to keep them for the season.

Last year, we had an army of parents building field elements Saturday/Sunday of kickoff, but it still wasn't enough to get everything done. I'd at least like to enjoy the same advantage that kickoff hosts do.

-Mike

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

Undoubtedly, having field elements on hand while prototyping, building, and testing leads to improvements in team robots. And yes, lower resource teams typically build fewer/no field elements.

But the solution isn't to give everyone more time for them. Think about it... kickoff is the first weekend in January. If you release the drawings a week early, you're backing into December with them many years - I don't know about everyone else, but that last week in December I'm out of the state with family. School is out, and many students are taking trips with family. Meeting to build field elements during that time won't work for a whole lot of people.

On the other hand, take a high resource team. Given their resources (which most likely include larger number of people), they can likely have someone available to build the field elements. And then once they have the field elements, why not start playing around with prototypes that can interact with those elements? Sure, you don't have the game rules, so 50% of your prototypes might be useless... but you're a high resource team so you can afford to waste those resources.


If you really want to help bump up those teams that don't have the person-power to build field elements after kickoff, then we should get someone like AndyMark to partner with first, take pre-orders for cheap field elements (You won't know what you're getting, you'll just know it's $100 for a set of field elements that year), then distribute them with the KoP at kickoff. Maybe have some assembly required (IKEA style assembly), designed to be assembled by 5 people in 4 hours or less.

Sure, you'll still have low resource teams that maybe feel like they can't afford that. But that's where high resource teams come in - Why not provide an option when pre-ordering your field elements to buy 1-3 extra for teams in your area? Let the RD's know a week ahead of time how many extra they have, and they can work to make sure those extra's get to the teams that could really benefit from them the most.

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

I've always wondered why FIRST didn't distribute game elements like this. It makes a lot of sense to me.

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

This is a good solution, but I'm unsure if it's feasible from a cost standpoint. Look at the cost of a half-field for FTC for comparsion: http://www.andymark.com/FTC17-p/am-3375_0b.htm. Without the game pieces, it still comes to a total of $295 + shipping.

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

Because you are over-reacting. I didn't critique anything. I asked for a little more info. But... you did jump to criticizing me. Please PM me with questions like those so that we can avoid taking this thread off on a tangent.

FIRST HQ says the Chairman's award is the highest honor they give to teams. If all other things are equal in a situation, it stands to reason that suggestions that move teams in the direction of earning a Chairman's Award are likely to receive more attention from FIRST HQ, than suggestions that don't. I try to keep that in mind.

While some teams that build OK robots, also have enough time, people, space, money, etc. to build several or a few field parts... the teams that struggle the most on-the-field, might suffer from being offered an additional task rather than benefit from the result it could produce. My personal attitude tilts toward finding ways to raise the very bottom of on-the-field performance before investing more in the rest of the spectrum.

That's just one facet of the conversation. Other posters have brought up other subjects that might or might not part of the situations the OP wanted to discuss/affect.

So, I asked.

Blake

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

As a low resource team that is stepping up to be a mid resource team I say don't change the current system. We actually appreciated having a task we could set our kids to while the robot design was being pondered. We turned out to have some pretty good carpenters on the team. It's not as if you must have everything available right away. You made the decision to be low bar capable and built that first. Then take on what you think will be the hardest defense (we went with rock wall). Other elements came along in time but it is not as if the lack of a complete mock up field in the first week or two made a difference to us. And totally agree with not messing with late December/early January. We demand so much of kids and families once the build season starts.

Should kick off teams be asked to hand over their Field Elements? They still get the advantange of having done it once but would not get the immediate option to start testing with them. The local Week Zero events would probably be very happy to have them.....

Bag and Tag 'em?

T. Wolter

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

Amen, Ditto, Double Ditto...

This would be a significant help. They could total by field piece, for those teams that won't build every field piece because of their strategy, plus total for all field pieces for those that will build all pieces.

Also, building field pieces is a wonderful way to get parents involved, rather than taking the students away from the strategy and prototyping.

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

Sigh...TO GET BACK ON TRACK....

To build the field for a kickoff, I'm fairly certain you have to sign some kind of NDA to see the field drawings. This prevents any teams who have access to the drawings from spreading them to others and to their own team members who have not yet seen the field.

I don't see an issue with opening this access to anyone who wants to sign the NDA, regardless on whether or not the build is for a Kickoff event. I think opening this to mentors only is a reasonable measure to ensure that the students are still getting the "kickoff experience".

125 builds the field elements for the local kick-off event (I am not involved- I'm home in CT on break during the build), and it was really nice to have everything ready to go on Day 1. From what I understand, it took the contingency of mentors a dew days work to get the elements done. I can definitely see where an advantage comes into play, and how the field build can be especially challenging when most of the team would rather get "robot-work" done.

However, before we release the field drawings early, maybe there should be a little more work ensuring proper dimension rules are followed.

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

I would have to give more thought to this jumping on either side

A good portion of kickoff teams have an advantage over their peers because they have these elements at their disposal. There are a few teams who build the fields but can't store them so they give some or all to other teams so the "all kickoff teams have an advantage" isn't necessarily true. Our team spent most of week 1 making the field with some items extending beyond into weeks 2 or 3 IIRC.

On the flip side we didn't make wooden versions of the static defenses. The team has a contact who got all the metal parts together and our mentors & students welded them in our shop. We only made one of the three sides to a tower and like many teams we didn't bother with the Sallyport or Drawbridge. We never completed our CDF. A hybrid wooden frame, metal door Portcullis was made and only used once for a test IIRC.

So if we had the drawings early I'm not sure what that would do for us since we upgraded to metal versions or skipped making others complete or altogether. Looking back we would have wasted a good portion of our time compared to what we ended up with. Maybe we wouldn't have made metal versions of the field?

All of that being said, the next town to our north is Manchester so the local kickoff for us involves seeing the full competition field. It wouldn't be fair for us to cry, "Disadvantage" over our peers in other areas because we don't have the team elements built and some do.

Opening up the drawings earlier should be discussed. If you choose not to build a full or partial field based on the released materials that is your decision. This is the same type of decision teams make when it comes to how many hours they meet, if they want to use their withholding allowance, or even use some or any of their unbag time. Yes there are teams who don't use withholding or decide not to use their unbag time

I agree with every comment on how bad the field drawings are. It is horrendous.

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

I think releasing the field drawings early is a bit of an unnecessary action, but there are steps FIRST should take to lessen the burden on teams in years where the field is especially complex. As many people have mentioned, the field drawings have to be correct, easy to interpret, and easy to make wood* versions of. Oftentimes, the people reading these drawings have no experience in drafting or CAD or have even seen engineering drawings. I know FIRST HQ is an extremely busy place, but it might help if they created a series of videos of building wood versions of field elements with hand tools and the resources available to most teams. If they release this with the slew of materials also available to teams on Kickoff, teams might be able to create field elements much more similar to what they'll actually see at a competition.

Some have mentioned releasing a bill of materials for the field elements early. I think this could also be helpful, as teams can go ahead and buy materials over Christmas break and be ready to go for game reveal.


*I realize some teams build field elements out of other materials, but I'd say the vast majority of teams that need help building the field elements are building them out of wood.

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

Correct.

This would be a significant load on FIRST to accomplish; field builder is an assigned volunteer role for official events, where they have some degree of control. And I should note that FIRST strongly discourages active team mentors from being assigned to this role.

Also accurate. 2015's field was pretty trivial, and it kicked our butts.

Major key.

Source: Kickoff coordinator for South Carolina 2015-2016; Garnet Squadron bankrolled (but did not build) field elements in 2015.

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

I agree with others that we don't need them early, we need them better. Some of the measurements on the 2015 and 2016 drawings were just baffling. If FIRST wants to help with this they need to give directions instead of just drawings. Give out documents that have bill of materials, suggested tools and work instructions, along with the drawings.

Another thing they could do is give Andymark(and/or other companies) the drawings as early as possible, with an NDA, and then let Andymark figure out if they can make and sell a flat pack version of the kit they can sell before kickoff so it shows around kickoff for the teams.

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

Part of the "kickoff experience" used to be getting the name of the game, that's no longer true so clearly we can make big changes. I don't think it's hurt the kickoff experience, there have been several leaks in the past and i don't remember ever feeling cheated by knowing something a little early, we still didn't have the complete rule set so we couldn't start designing.

I'm all for giving more information to teams to make the FRC season less stressful and improve the quality of robots on the field.

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

I'm certainly not opposed to the idea of releasing the game element designs early, but the practical limitation of backing up against Christmas holidays is an issue.

As mentioned earlier, a bit more refinement of the "wooden field" drawings would be helpful. The drawings may have improved, but I remember thinking "this was drawn by someone who has never built anything." (To quote one of my colleagues... "These were drawn by a @#$%@#$ engineer.") A bit of an exaggeration, but the drawings certainly didn't express any empathy for the builder.

Having a team of people who have never seen the final elements build and assemble the "wooden field" based on the drawings would not only provide feedback on how to improve the drawings but would also provide a chance to have a photographic step-by-step guide on how to build the field.

It would also help to have a parts list so that teams could have plywood, 2x4's and any weird hardware bits in stock, rather than having to spend the weekend chasing them down.

Good suggestion, though... having some practice field elements makes a BIG difference in building a reasonably competitive robot.

Jason

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

Absolutely this!
We dont need this to become another engineering/math exercise since often times, there are discrepancies between different views of the drawings which makes this an even harder task than it should be.

Another recommendation, I hope they keep the field elements as simple as possible. 2016 was a nightmare to build and a lot of $$$$$ to spend.

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

Like some of the other teams in the thread I am from a team who builds a field for a kick-off and honestly we do not get that much of an advantage over most other FRC teams. For one thing they tell us to build things but usually don't tell us how they go together until as late as possible prior to the kick off (We actually got it the night before last year). For the sake of honesty I will tell you that as of this moment we know nothing about this years game beyond what was shown in the teaser so it isn't like we start getting stuff way ahead of time.

Honestly speaking from experience being a kickoff team isn't a huge advantage because the way the game is played (atleast the last 3 years) is a mystery.
2014: Had no idea there was no end game, did not know about assists, or catching, or how many game pieces were on the field.
2015: Literally the field told you nothing, and when we got the game pieces (A garbage can and a pool noodle, since we did not know that the totes were pieces) we were more confused.
2016: We knew there would be multiple obstacles, but did not know that we HAD to cross them, or that crossing gave you points, or that crossing multiple effected your ranking. We also could only guess at the game piece based on the tower but we did not know we would be limited to only 1.

Also as an aside to anyone from FIRST who may or may not be reading this, last year we built a team version of the hanging bar for 0 reasons since we just put them on the tower anyway. When you release something like that please let kickoff teams know what is a field element and what is just a separate free standing item for testing purposes so we don't waste resources building something unnecessary.


But for the topic at hand I am all for releasing the drawings of field elements ahead of time for everyone but not releasing the full field to everyone till kickoff.

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

At the Iowa Regional, a person from FIRST was there - during setup, I asked him who made the field drawings. He said, "I did." After a short pause to think it over, I said "You know, they were really awful." He did not disagree.

Apparently they work very long days doing both the official field drawings and the team drawings in a very short window. It's easy for me to say that it doesn't take much more time to put proper dimensions on a drawing than it does to put less useful dimensions. This is difficult to do when you're worn out from working so many hours.

I'm hoping this year's schedule leaves a little more time for working the details of the field.

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

You're my hero.

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

As someone who has been leading field builds and hosting kickoffs since 2008, I just wanted to add a couple bits of color to the discussion.

While I think the advantages to host teams/mentors are obvious, it is definitely more of a mixed bag than a slam dunk advantage. Deciphering the drawings is a TON of work that then needs to be built into a BOM and budget. For me, I also do the materials run each year, which means I get to go buy the sometimes insane amount of wood required.

Often times, what we build is completely useless, or misleading. I cannot tell you how much effort went into building the 2013 practice version Pyramid that was completely useless for anything but aesthetic or scale. It did help the 45 teams at the Kickoff we hosted get a sense for scale, but it was unuseable for climbing. The 2010 tower had 4X4 sides, not round bar needed for most curl up hangers. The 2014 practice Truss was SO not worth the effort for something that was essentially a volleyball net.

All of those projects required dozens or even hundreds of man hours to pull off. It was also pulled off at a time where a lot of us want to spend time with family and enjoy the calm before the storm. On top of that, in many instances, the version we built needed heavy modifcation or complete rebuild to fulfill the teams needs. This meant duplicating the work we already did.

It's a lot of wasted time, money, effort, etc. There is definitely advantages that come from it for the team having some elements done, but wanted to frame the effort and risk behind it.

-Brando

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

Here's a crazy idea.

Why not, prior to Kickoff, release a "Cut List"? Doesn't have to be final size, but I could see something like this:

Element 1 (<=1):

• 5" x 5" wood beam, 3' long, QTY 1
• 3/4" plywood, 3' long by 1.5' wide, QTY 1

Element 2 (<=1):

• 3/4" plywood, 3' long by 1.5' wide, QTY 1
• 3' long 1.5" x 1.5" wood beam, QTY 2

Element 3 (<=5):
(list of parts for defense base)

[remaining elements of field]

You get the idea. Doesn't have to be final size, or have any funny angles included, but should be, if cut, a "kit" that will allow teams to take an educated guess as to what they'll want to build, and the approximate size. For example, if I saw something saying "<=5", I'd take a guess and say "I think I need to build a couple of these, let me look at the list for that". And for stuff with a "common" piece, I'd probably cut a bunch of those pieces.

Then, when Kickoff comes out, all FIRST has to do is include one extra list with the Manual:
Element 1 = Rock Wall, pg X
Element 2 = Rough Terrain, pg Y
Element 3 = Defense Base, pg Z
[...]
Then everybody can get their pre-cut "kits" and assemble.

Still doesn't solve the nuisance of "hey, who gave us bad team-build materials" but should get teams to that point faster.

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

I really like this. Mentoring a team that struggled to build fields in 2015 and 2016, the chokehold was...
a. figuring out how much wood we needed and of what type
b. getting all the parts cut. Since we didn't have the required woodworking equipment, we had to rely on parents willing to donate time and therefore work around their schedules.
Once we got all the parts made, assembly went off quickly and relatively painlessly.

Getting simply the part drawings ahead of time would be a huge help. Even if they did give us exact quantities, I don't think there's much you can learn ahead of kickoff trying to piece the subassemblies together without any idea of what the full assembly is supposed to be.

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

BRILLIANT! Yes! This would be AWESOME!

It could be released in December, and would be WAY more entertaining than a game hint as people try to figure out the different ways that pieces could be assembled.

It would also require that FIRST invest a bit more time in the team drawings... which, from the sound of it, is part of the problem with them now.

Jason

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

@Frank

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

I seem to remember a year that released the team version of the field materials list early.

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

Maybe FIRST could get a sponsorship from Ikea, and we all could get flat-packed field parts with pictoral assembly instructions. And then all the parts could have funny names.

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

Early in my time with FIRST, I remember getting an early hardware list. They abandoned the concept probably ten years ago, on the grounds that teams couldn't make an informed decision about what to buy to play their game.

Personally, I'd be thrilled with a nice cut/shopping list.

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

This is a great idea!

Even for teams like ours where we might not make all the elements, wood is cheap and can easily be used elsewhere.

Some items that might give away the field could be combined. The defenses could have been easily disguised by bundling them together so as to not give away the field. Other items like the goal cutouts we could have just received the overall size and then given the cut version at kickoff.

Please Frank consider this!

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

Found an early version of Eric's idea,

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

#TSIMFD

Would love an early released cut list for lumber or even just a timely cut list for lumber.

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

I LOVE this idea.

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

I truly appreciate all of the responses in this thread.

While I still believe there are more benefits teams in releasing all of the Team Drawings early, with various methods of subterfuge to disguise the game perhaps, I think EricH has is a nice middle ground that can achieve what is necessary to help teams get a good start on their season.

I know that Frank reads CD and hopefully this thread may help implement these changes for this season.

I also really like what Jason Brett said, it would really serve as an awesome Game Hint as well.

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

I'll second this idea. Would be a huge plus in many ways, including budgeting of both $ and time.

I would also speak to those holding kickoff events and the "not much of an advantage" thought. Not much of an advantage is knowing the game name.
Having field elements day of kickoff, that is an advantage. On our team, we have joked about Ri3D comparing it to Fi3D (field in 3 days).

Perhaps those that host might be inclined to allow teams attending to take some of those elements with them after kickoff? then some other teams would have "not much of an advantage". Just a thought.

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

Would said teams pay the host team for said field elements? Not trying to be greedy but the host team had to use their materials, and their man power to build them it seems unfair to give them away just for some arbitrary idea of fairness.

That being said my team has made field elements in the past for other teams we usually have two caveats though, one is that you purchase your own materials (usually just the lumber), and if you are able to have a student come to our shop to either assist in building it or be overseen by us in building it depending on the students skill set.

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

This could be done today by any of the teams that build for a kickoff creating a BOM and cut list and posting it here at kickoff.

I'll try to be organized this year and do that.

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

Someone said above somewhere that everyone who works on building the field before the season needs to sign a NDA that they won't tell what the field elements are before kickoff. Wouldn't publicizing the cut list without consent from FIRST be a breach of the NDA?

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

Yeah, I suggested releasing at kickoff when the field drawings are public. Pretty sure I read in my NDA it only applies until the information is public.

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

I've assumed that the folks volunteering to publish the info would do it at their local kickoffs (not a week early).

That would be different from the OP's suggestion, but hopefully accomplish a big chunk of the benefit the OP wanted to accomplish.

The publishers will need to pay attention to the recently announced world wide coordination of kickoff announcements, but otherwise it should be easy to do correctly.

Blake

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

And as a team that has hosted a kickoff event since, well, the first one ever, I would love to answer that. There are, as usual, plenty of misconceptions about the supposed advantages, and especially about how much work goes into it.

Those field elements don't just appear by magic. The final drawings are usually released 7-10 days (faulty memory could be a factor here) before kickoff. And you know all of those missing dimensions and poor drawings? They're even worse before the KO hosts start looking at them and asking questions. So while Team B is doing some final training or, more importantly, just resting and preparing for the season, Kickoff Host Team A is scrambling to build field elements. Interestingly, the size of the "advantage" is proportional to the amount of work. Some years there are fewer elements but it takes less time (for everybody) to build them. Last year was a killer. I would even allege that the advantage went to teams that could target what they wanted to prototype against first (i.e. rock wall vs. hanging bar) and build the other elements while that work was going on in parallel. KO hosts had to try to build all of them in a short time.

Let's not forget that the only reason Team A is building field elements is that they're also doing all the work that it takes to host Team B (and Teams C though AZ) at their Kickoff... KOP pickup, speakers, seminars/workshops, college fairs. But I suppose some would call that an advantage as well. After all, Team A didn't have to actually travel as far to attend the all-day rookie chassis build that they put on.

30 minutes after the video, Team B is back on the road with their KOP to begin their strategy and design talks. Meanwhile, Team A is doing cleanup and teardown and paperwork and all the other things that it takes to wrap up a kickoff event, including waiting 4 or 5 hours for teams Y and Z who were late, and the rules say if they don't pick up their KOP by the event close you can just send them back to HQ, but who's going to do that?

All for the "advantage" of having field elements sit in a closet for a month. Outside of the top 1% of teams (and frankly I'm not concerned with them, they'll be fine) the truth is that most teams have no use for field elements before week 3 anyway (with the occasional exception of bumps and obstacles where a drivetrain is a good enough prototype device).

So I'd love to come attend your local kickoff event. I promise I'll show up on time and I won't even ask to take your field elements with me when I leave. I'll get to take the month of December off and I'll have field elements built during Week 1 while strategy is being discussed anyway.

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

My bad, I assumed you meant to release it early like the OP (or someone earlier in the thread) suggested. That would still be helpful to compile and release a cut list after the drawings are released if FIRST doesn't do it themselves.

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

Please do. Happily Virginia FIRST and now, Chesapeake District has hosted a wonderful event at the VCU campus. Understand limited seating so whole teams are discouraged. A side note we have in the past, hosted other teams to join our kickoff activities, from the reveal thru post discussions. However due to the area’s organization hosting an event, we were not allowed access to the early field element drawings.

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

So I desperately want all the drawing improvements (so frustratingly overdue), and I'd do anything for official CAD released at kickoff. Also love the cut list hint!


My biggest thought, though, is Jon+Knufire's AndyMark discussion above. I wonder whether AM would be interested in surveying this for 2017. Don't actually manufacture or distribute anything (just prototypes). But present the idea and after kickoff say, "okay, if you'd pre-ordered the $100 kit this year, you would've gotten X. The $250 would've added Y, the $N kit added Q..."

If the hypothetical kits get a good "I'd buy that" response, maybe consider a real pilot in 2018, setup similar to the chassis opt out. Personally if AM thinks something like this is feasible, I'd trust them to give me the most critical/useful/sensitive/annoying-to-build-myself field elements for my pre-order price. If you end up not wanting to do a task, I bet someone around you would love to take that particular element off your hands.

I know this is a huge task and pressure in a dozen ways, and I wouldn't expect a yes from AM. But if so and the price points work out, this could help a lot of really striving teams. It also potentially doesn't have to be AM alone; we have so many good orgs in FRC now that the element choices could be endorsed by multiple trusted big names under NDAs (possibly with a distribution of work between them and/or branding).

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

They could do it under a throwaway account, but it'd be hard to prove it's a real list without blowing their cover.

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

Yes let's make someone blow their NDA because they can't get caught due to anonymity. But if what they say is complete BS and I can see it, I either let teams potentially waste money, or blow my NDA by saying it's wrong. Now I don't think FIRST would care if I did but by saying that the cut list is wrong I would be violating the NDA technically.

Re: Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early
 

I wasn't really trying to endorse that happening, more suggesting a situation in which it could happen. I certainly agree that it'll be bad for teams if someone decides to release a fake list, causing confusion. Even a real list would be complicated, because of course it'll be denied to keep the game (or disassembled pieces of wood that make a game) a secret.