$3500 ruling......big mistake
 

Sometimes I read FIRST rulings and just shake my head. I am convinced that they just don't really understand how many teams work. Here's the new ruling:

There have been many questions on figuring the total cost of additional components,
particularly with regards to labor from a machine shop. If a machine shop is a team
partner, i.e., the shop’s name is part of the team’s name, their labor can be excluded from
the cost of the robot. Conversely, if the machine shop is not a team partner:
• You must include their labor charges;
• If they donate their labor, you must include the fair market value of their labor.

They better start getting ready to announce some awefully long team names because we have five machine shops helping us and I don't think we could even build our gearboxes for $3500 in fair market value machine shop labor. Looks like they are all going in our name along with our main sponsor who, though generous with money, in unable to help with manufacturing. My impression is that FIRST was thinking a $3500 limit wouldn't change the robot designs much. If you have to bookkeep market rates for machine shop labor, that changes things drasticaly and we can throw out a weeks worth of design work.

James Jones
Engineer/Coach
Team 180 SPAM

Our team has no problem with it except for the fact that we have to count every nut on the robot. We only have 1500 dollars to spend.:D

You are right....they should make the teams that get FREE shop time from their sponsors count the cost of those hours.

It's only fair....it doesn't make it any more expensive for those teams....it only makes the playing field only slightly more level. (they still have the ability to do ALOT more work...proto or otherwise...for FREE)

-Quentin

I would agree with you if every team had acess to a machine shop but not all of them do.

machine shop access
 

I'm guess I'm not making my point.

1. I'm still going to build the same robot, you just better get a good magazine when we go on stage because our name is going to contain our sponsor + five machine shops....hence free labor.

2. It is unfortunate that some teams don't have alot of machine shop resources....believe me I have been there. It is also unfortunate that some football teams don't have good quarterbacks. I think we should make the good quarterbacks sit out to give the lousy ones a chance.

3. Let me give an example. I worked at Motorola for two years and was on their team (267). Motorola had a model shop that did half or more of the machining on the robot. We built some pretty nice robots that would would have been very expensive had we paid fair market value. None of that labor would have counted toward the $3500 limit because motorola was the main sponsor, motorola did the machining so I could have spent $100000 on labor and it wouldn't matter. Now I'm on a team whose sponsor gives money but not machining. Now I can only bring a $3500 robot while Motorola (if they still exist) can bring a $100,000 robot. That's FIRST fairness?

4. Labor should not be tracked at all period. It's a hassle to the mentors and volunteers that adds no value to the experience or goals of FIRST. It does not make the game more fair it makes it more unfair. The teams with no machining resources have no machining resources. The game will always be stacked against them. It's part of building their team to go out and get those resources. Now FIRST has taken teams that might have parity in manufacturing capability and hamstrung the teams whose main sponsor doesn't have a machine shop.

James

Re: machine shop access
 

But the idea of making everyone account for their fair market costs IS a way or leveling the field.

Heck, you still have the ACTUAL savings...and god knows you can make 50 revisions of each part because the time and labor is FREE.....so they still have a fantastic advantage.

The problem is that I think FIRST caved in to the Sponsors by allowing their labor to be free. I think FIRST is smart, knowing that without the big sponsors, FIRST would be nothing. (that's why I hate politics....it sometimes gets in the way of what is right)

-Quentin

The problem is that the team with machining resources still have only 3500 dollars to use on their robot including machining. Ahhh I see where your getting at but still it will never really be exactly level.

sorry disagree
 

FIRST didn't cave to big name sponsors, they just made a bad rule. Look, for $3500 of fair market value machining and raw materials you get a drivable box. You do not get 4 wheel drive 4 wheel steering, shifting gearboxes, variable ratio transmissions, walking beam drives, crab drives or the fancy, amazing robots people like to watch. FIRST needs expensive, impressive robots so people will want to watch.

Let's look at this from the purpose of FIRST perspective. I want to get kids excited about manufacturing, engineering and technology. Should I show them what a nice machine shop can do with an aggressive, advanced design and let them see the possibilities? Or should I hand them a hacksaw and some tubing and say this is all we can afford, knock yourselves out. Both experiences have value. I guess it is a matter of opinion which is more inspiring.

By the way, it's not about politics. Dragging everybody down to the level of the least resourced teams is not fair and it is not right and it not good for FIRST.

James

I get really mixed feelings reading this thread...

On one hand all we have to spend is $1000 but as NASA says "the check is in the mail" so right now we got squat. nothing. nada. nil.

We got some metal yards (about 5) to donate extruded AL, Northern Tools SAY they will help us w/ some tools and a machine shop will only charge us $30 an hour for work (welding etc) So how do we right that in. Do we still need to right fair market value for the machanists time? Are they sponsors?

For example, l I know we wont have a multi speed electric transmission (like some teams) but not because of cost but because of time, expertise and alot of people who believe in the KISS method (far too much stuff to go wrong in a complex design) and no one who knows how to design something like that much less build it. Cost comes into play later... But it still is a big expense.

Even better than that for a materials writeup what about our team bartering w/ the mechine shop w/ metal (we found about $1000 dollars worth of metal in our shop when we cleaned it out) and the mechanist says he will trade us. Go figure.

What I think of the rule? I'm not sure.

Go Falcons
-Andy

I believe this is the way to go. You can use all the fancy machines and tools but when it comes down to it you must know how to fix things using nothing but duct tape and a whatever supplies at hand. What happens if disaster strikes and you've got the wrong tools. That's where the tough get going and grab whatever tools and materials they can get. What do you think the engieers at apollo 13 did??? Machine the tool at there shop. Ductape engineering is the way to go.:D Hehe why not machine the stuff yourself. Then it would be free.

I am a little upset to read that your gearbox couldn't be made with $3500. We make our gear boxes for free. use gears and material from stuff we find at our school then machine it. i can understand if you don't have a machine shop in your school and you have too pay labour; but going to FIVE machine shops that just is not right. you are claiming that you are leveling the playing field. I don't think so you are making it worse by having such a perfect robot while there are still teams with almost nothing. What exactly are you being inspired by or recognizing. (For INSPIRATION and RECOGNITION of Science and Technology) You are just paying a machine shop to build your robot for you. I can't see how some one would learn from this. These kits this year were designed for teams with no machine shop. so there is no need to go to 5 maching shops to get your robot built.

Just My Two cents.

And take into the consideration that some teams may be dishonest and not list everything that they received/spent money on. For example, if a team bought 100 feet of aluminum, messed up with 40 feet, and used 60 feet on the robot, they could write it as 60 feet of aluminum. Also, FIRST can't count all the nuts and bolts on the robot, which makes it more of a problem for the honest teams and let the dishonest teams get away with their deeds.

That would be ok though.:) It's only the stuff thats on the robot. Remeber it's prorated.

Wrong, that's what you are supposed to do. If you only use 60 feet of it on your actual robot then you are only supposed to record the 60 feet you use. Same with plate or bolts. If you only use 12x12 of a 24x24 inch plate then you only have to charge yourself 1/4 of the purchase price. It clearly states that in the rules.

This is true , but you just have to trust that they won't.

The thing about the real world is that there usually ARE hard limits on what you can spend to develop things.....and so why should that be different here?

In fact, this really ISN'T a limit on development costs is it....people can still go off and make tons of protos, and perhaps lots of tooling if they wanted.....no? (isn't the cost of parts just material and labor....all the NRE is left out)

Besides, in general, the winner in business isn't always the one with the "best" (highest performaing) design....there are all sorts of other issues, like time to market, development and MFG costs, etc....

No matter what we say or do, you have to admit that FIRST is a concocted enterprise. No where in business would you end up with 800 competitors for so many years....and continue to have that number GROWING!

If this were business, the best would surface, and the rest would go under.....but that's not what FIRST wants.....so there has to be some sort of "leveling" in order to keep EVERYONE in it.

Besides.....why not try and make some of your enhancements this year with electronics and software? There are plenty of opportunities for this with the custom circuit...and all of that will be very cheap by comparison. (bang for the buck....perhaps the biggest engineering challange, especially in an economy like this!)

-Quentin