Re: machine shop access
 

I must quote my fellow teammate and adult mentor here. But its also not just this rule. There's also teams that have quarter million dollar budgets complaing about the two regional ruling. Instead of complaining, what about donating to other teams, setting up scholarships, etc.... that would be the true F.I.R.S.T. spirit (not to mention look good on the Chairman's Award). When I first started on S.P.A.M. we had a bunch of table top tools (drill press, band saw, really meant for hobby work, none of this heavy duty stuff), hand tools, and the Pratt and Whitney machines (whatever was available we had a machinist use), engineers donating their time, the like. Now these teams have engineers and machinists ASSIGNED to work for the company sponsored F.I.R.S.T. team, I found that out. This competition has NEVER BEEN FAIR but this $3500 limit for the robot with labor, with some of these designs, namely GEARBOXES and CHASSIS, a lot of time is spent simply machining the parts just to get a robot to move on the field. The increase of manufacturing was a move on our part to complete the robot way ahead of the ship date to debug the robot. This allows us obviously to correct problems (or repairing the occasional jumping off the shelf gearbox). I have spent hours (at least 3 at KSC and 6 at Epcot) repairing our gearboxes. If we found out these problems earlier, we could have never spent as much time on that endeavour. I've worked my way from simply hacksaws to bandsaws yes. We've built up our team in this way as well. Our team and sponsor benefits. But also I must add is that these sponsors and supporters contribute this as their donation, rather than money. Furthermore, these Machine Shops are a critical part of spreading the F.I.R.S.T. message as they have amongst many groups the most to benefit from F.I.R.S.T. activities. So don't tell me its not fair that you're working with a cordless drill, hacksaws, screw drivers, all starting teams begin there and you slowly add more and more equipment. I have not met a team that has been "properly supported" in the beginning with shops, engineers, etc.... other than the big name teams. This competition has never been fair.

In this whole rant if you've read it this far, the F.I.R.S.T. community is never even. If you want to talk money in the robot, what about money to go to competition. People complained about the two regional limit. So yeah, $3500 in the robot, great. All this work wasted. I've seen us grow and expand, part of this expansion includes machine shops (specifically those 5 who said they'd help). A lot of support was drummed up last year due to our success and also we owe our success to solid design and MANUFACTURING.

Michael Lee
International Baccalaureate Senior
South Fork High School
U.S. F.I.R.S.T. Robotics Competition Team 180, S.P.A.M.;
International Summit of Young Technology Leaders 2002
(YTL Summit) Network Delegate

All I have to say is that FIRST has good reasons for this ruling.

1) Playing field is leveled to be fair to all teams, so better funded teams don't completely womp less funded teams.

2) Your team is like a business producing a product. Guess what people in the real world have to do. Yes, that's right, they have to account for all the materials that are used to build their product.

3) Finance is now an important part of the game which means students can now experience first hand at what the actual companies do every day.

So welcome to the real world. You can complain all you want, but that's not going to change anything. The purpose of FIRST is to teach students about the real world, and I believe that this is a very good way of doing it.

[edit]And for those who have not read the most recent rules update... nuts, bolts, washers, screws, etc that are less than $1.00 each in cost do NOT have to be accounted for.[/edit]

I agree.:) $3500 is more than enough to build an effective robot.

My son joined SPAM four years ago. I have seen both he and the team mature. If you all think that the $3500 limit levels the playing field -my reply is -yeah right- who are you kidding! When he started with this team - all they had was table top tools -guess what - we still use them -but we lucked out - a nice person who was curious - understood that we needed help -- he owned a machine shop - allowed our students to go to his shop at night and weekends to work . The team did really well - because of our success - we were successful in lining up additional assistance - Some of you out there seem to think that since we are getting assistance - our students are not doing anything at all - well it is not the case -- our students will still be building the robot - what the difference is that this mom and other parents will not be in the pit -- machining lightening holes or other parts at the wee hours in the morning - go home catch a couple hours of sleep - and go to work.

NOT a mistake
 

The $3,500 limit, is anything but a mistake. Finally FIRST is doing something about monster teams gobbling up the competition. Last year our team built "tweety" probably the ugliest robot in the toronto regional...but since we spent $100 on it, that dosent come as a suprise. But along with spending so little money on it came the greatest experience ever. Trying to do things without the exact parts, modifying things to make tehm work for you, thats where you elarn, when u use your head. Quite some learning experience if a blueprint or parts go into a machine shop, and out comes half of your robot. DO things yourselves, LEARN !
I can already smell it coming, arguments aobut how im wrong, and thats not the point of FIRST and all that, but honestly i dont care. There is no one in this world who can tell me how i feel...and i feel that putting your hands on the bot only enhances the experience. So all you engeneers, start building those robots for the competition, but myself along with my team are gonna go and get dirty.

I don't think that the spending limit will make the playing field completely level because of course some teams have more experience and connections. However, I do think its a great idea. 691's teacher/advisor was thinking of making spending caps for each subgroup last year anyway. Like Martin said, you become more resourceful and learn more. Of course fundraising is a great skill to learn but I think that FIRST should be about learning and thinking rather than seeing who can rack up the most sponsors, find the most connections, and spend the most money.

kickoff slide
 

Does noone remember the slide from kick off? Ya know, "This will not be fair. We annot make it fair. Acept it!"

now first is all about doing cool and inovative stuff, rite? now a team with a machine shop can do the coolest stuff. and the coolest stuff while very cool, doesnt realy make that much of a differance. 10 grand gearbox with aoutomatic transmition wont make a huge differance against a singlespeed, constant ratio system; its just cooler and more inovative.

Think of these bots as prototypes in a company. Imanine if Ford said that a the first pressing of an engine block must be near the cost of a full production engine.

Also, whats a better way to get people inspired about science and tech nologie, then to let the try out some of the latest tooles of the trade?

Now i could see if first said that it counted as the prorated fair market value of a 10,000 order, or the cost of a similar, noncustom part. most of the custom gearboxes could be made for under $300 this way. it would still count against the team, but it wouldn't stifle creativity, and coolness.

btw - Just for the record, im fully opposed to allowing profesional engineers desine these bots. teas should use them as a referance, not a substitute for coming up with a plan. It is a very valuble prosses to learn how to do the planning civily. My team haas spent all week on this, and there is still some bickering, but we all learned a lot for the prosses. with luck we will be build ing on tuesday or thurs.

team info - 3rd year team with a small machine shop donateing some spare machine time.

Errr if your machining the parts then what is the big deal about. It's free.:) Remeber the team from New York City I believe the little red engine that could. It doesn't have to be complicated for it to be effective.

Re: NOT a mistake
 

I'm pretty sure that last year was the first year there was no spending limit. I think that in 2001 we couldn't spend more than $1200. However, labor was not included in this. It was no deifferent then and it won't be different now, there will still be teams that have greater resources than others. FIRST cannot prevent this from happening.

I sure hope student/parents machining doesn't count towards the cost. ;)

It sounds like only machining done by anyone other than a team partner, mentor, member, etc. They really are only limiting work that is contracted to machine shop.

Great, so I can just do all the welding myself.

I wonder how much of a cost I would have to put down when I accidentally weld my finger to the chassis...

I think if machining was relatively easy, then students doing it would be a good alternative, but the same teams who don't have the sponsor resources to do the machining probably don't have the mentors to help with training for machining.

We do the machining...we've managed to acquire a few "new" industrial grade milling machine, lathe, drill press, bandsaw, and grinder for our pit. Stuff made there definately won't count. But also a few of us have had the opportunity to work on such machines (with adult supervision of course). I'm not whinig nor am I complaining. Yes in life there are budgets but the point is that the competition was never fair to begin with. Teams like S.P.A.M. have scrapped enough to get to competition, building the robot as best we can with whatever tools we have. We've grown to include these 5 machine shops as a basis of support. Rather than donate money like other area individuals and companies, they offered manufacturing support that was badly needed in previous years. In 2000, my first year...we sat around, 15 of us, waiting for parts being machined else where to arrive as we were prohibited to go to that site. This hindered our ability to accomplish our goals for that year. Increasing manufacturing support allows us to provide more opportunities to not only us students but also to expidite the process of building the robot. The more practice time you have the better knowledge of your robots problems and how to overcome them. We've never had this time for debugging the robot. This time is invaluable. Its better to break the robot prior to shipping but definately not the night before like we did last year. Correcting problems early also us the pit crew to well, take it easy. This doesn't mean we're lazy, rather we prefer not to have to build/add new parts at competition unless we're modifying the design. Having these machine shops allows our sponsors to work on contracts as they donate time, labor, and sometimes materials to do this after business hours. This $3500 limit hinders the development of teams to include all parts of engineering. This allows us to see the full spectrum and what a beautiful sight it is.

I see it as only hurting more some teams... here is an example

A is sponsord by say acme manufacturing and they have a huge shop with lathe, mill, rapid prototyping, ect.

B is sponsored by say citibank corp. who only donates money.

well A uses the tools of their "sponsor" to make their robot
and B tryes to make the same thing that A made.. well their quote from the machene shop was 5K well B cannot get that part made... they cant make it themselves for lack of tools... but A has no diffulticy in making it because the shop is a "sponsor", B could have easily paied for the labor.. but this years rule forbids it.. so in this case little jhonny students great gearbox, or other device dident get made cause of that rule.. but if jhonny had been on team A it would have been made and used...

now how is that fair for anybody?

How about team B buys the tools, then builds the part themselves?