It would seem to me that Al's post above says it all and that truth and justice will prevail. F.I.R.S.T. Must see this and reconsider. We have built a Tank and could probably be droped off a 10 story building but I recall our first year back in 1999 when we were advised to build a strong Robot but being Rookies we didnt know what a strong Robot ment.
We thought we bult strong but were wrong, we had our share of problems and many teams came to our rescue including TEAM 111 Thank you....
This caring and sharing will end this year as its every man for him self. why would any team want to fix a teams bot that might come out the next game and cause damage that in effect sends you home.
I know our team cant afford to make enough spare parts to cover all problems but all the rich teams and well funded teams wont have this concern. Last year we had a robot that as soon as we played the first game it was apparent that we had a very serious flaw and if it hadnt been for the three days between shipping and the end of the regionals we would not have been able to compeete in the nationals.
If F.I.R.S.T. DOESNT KNOW IT BROKE THEN THEY CANT FIX IT.
I HAVE STUCK PINS IN THE MAP AND EVEN THE CORNERS BUT I FOUND ALL CORNERS WERE THE SAME AND THE MAP FULL OF HOLES...
Nick237

Geez...
 

Ok, I know I'm probably gonna get flamed for posting this, but... wow, guys... calm down. I understand the reasons behind everybody disliking the rule, but come on... nobody ever said the competition was going to be easy, and this is an incentive to use our alotted weight to make our robot as robust as possible. We all have the same problem we need to work around here, so let's do the best we can, right? It's an engineering challenge, and there's really no point engineering a robot to be overly fragile anyways. If you do things right, you should be able to protect all of your robot's vital components. We asked for head-2-head competition back, and we got it, and as a result, we got the consequences that go along with it. There's no point asking for h-2-h action if we can't handle the fact that THINGS MAY GET BROKEN. It's a fact of life, so we should all just deal with it and then go build our robots. There's no referees in the real world, and if you view it as "just a game", then it seems to me that you're getting too worked up about it. Anyways, that's just my 2 cents. I'm off to keep workin on the 'bot.

Keep it real

I agree with azn dawg. Has anyone thought that this is a way to try to minimize the hits that dean hates so much? Also, people are thinking what is a robot hits me? What if you hit another robot and break who's fault is that?

This game is all about planning. Let's face it, being a 2 on 2 there is no way you can guarantee safety during a match for your robot because stuff happens. a possible back up would be to put all of the possibly needed parts into the crate with the tools so that you can fix what has been broken

The last things I have to say is if you have the raw materials you should be able to fix the part that has broken without too much trouble of prefabrication.

p.s. it feels good to post again

Are you kidding....... Your in the finals and theres 2 minutes between games, you discover your main gear box has to be rebuilt what are you going to do whip out some raw material and wave a magic wand, because thats what you will need to save you.
Your assuming that the machine shop will drop everything they are doing just to fix your Robot, Your assuming there is a machine shop???.
Wake up. If you think you can fix all major parts with some raw material in the blink of an eye then why do we need 6 weeks to build, why not have the teams build their bots at the Kick off.
Its nice to know that your team has so much money that it can afford to make so many extra parts just in case. But many teams are not in that group (us included) so many of the posts above are thinking of their plight. Who needs the chalenge, not me. Give us the 3 lousy days.
Nick

THE MAP IS FULL OF HOLES
 

Thanks Al, you've made my point exactly. Like I said before, teams at FIRST events do not just let other teams flounder when they need help. When a team needs help, the helpers have to stand in line! That is the beauty of this organization, and it will not change because there's more contact in the game.

Nick, I'm sorry, but you're completely off base here. In 1999, there was just as good a chance that a robot that team 111 helped fix would come back to compete against team 111. The truth of the matter is that it's much more fun to compete against robots that work than it is to compete against broken robots, and, more importantly, it is in the spirit of the game to help!

Bad news - those three days aren't going to help you, even in this situation. Better hope you have a good partner, maybe even someone who's robot you helped fix.

The thing that distresses me the most about this thread, though, is that no one has addressed my point about teams attending multiple regionals having an unfair advantage. Am I off base with this statement? And please be civil - just because we disagree doesn't mean that we can't do it graciously.

Re: THE MAP IS FULL OF HOLES
 

I have no problem with multiple regionals, we are going to 2 and I wish we could get to them all but we dont have the funds. The attendence of many regionals is factored by the total amount of $$$ that a team has and that might be what your talking about. Good luck to any team that can go to multi regionals but your going to see a much different game this year. Will teams be chearing for other teams like they have in the past, I dont think so.
The fun is the Nationals and if your an even team then the spirit might be with you but if your an odd team then its Win or Loose except theres an added twist, if your Bot is damaged you cant fix it.
Nick

I have no problem either with teams going to multiple regionals. If you have the means, and the regionals are nearby, then go for it! The problem is that, when teams get those three days after a regional, it's after every regional. So those few teams that can attend three regionals can have more than one additional week with their robot than those that only attend one.

You can also attend nationals by winning one of the regional chairman's awards, or one of the technology awards.

I'm not a big fan either of the regionals-as-qualifying-event paradigm, but it's a happy problem to have - FIRST is growing! FIRST was stuck between a rock and a hard place for this one. The bottom line was that there are too many teams for them to all to go to nationals. So some must not be allowed to go. They chose evens and odds. (A better solution might be to go by the year a team joined, so that all rookie teams can go to nats.) Alternatively, in order to keep teams from losing that helpful spirit, they could have said that winning a regional doesn't help a team go to nats, but that eliminates a lot of teams with great robots. So they chose the lesser of two evils in letting regional winners go on, trusting the participants of FIRST to abide by the creed of gracious professionalism, and not allow the prize of going to Florida to cloud their judgement. Was that the correct assumption? Only time will tell, but I'd like to think that it was.

You make some great points that I have to agree with but its more important that FIRST agrees with than us.
I think I would like to see some thing very new happen next year that might solve a few of the problems. so how about this idea. Love to see if you love or hate it.
OK we all agree that FIRST has grown to big to fast. so with this in mind FIRST had to shorten the playing field and they did it by the ODD/EVEN rule. Boooo.
Anyway what if next year they know how many teams are able to go to the Nationals and the know how many regionls there are so they divide the regionals into the National and come up with an average.
For instance if the # is 24 then the top 8 teams and their aliances get to go to the Nats. This in my mind is the fairest way to have the best of the best attend the Nationals. Yes there will be disapointment but this way you get to go on the merit of you Robot and alliance, not by the type of # at the end of your team.
With this system when you get to go its because you did it right, not wrong.
Works for me.
Nick

FIRST in the desert?
 

I'm sure that this arrangement was considered, but dropped because of what you talked about in your previous post. This type of arrangement would not de-emphasize winning, it would cause winning to be more important than it is. It also would not allow some teams to ever go to nationals. There are a few top tier teams: teams with exceptional funding, exceptional engineers, great school support, and fantastic students. These teams would go every year in the current system or in the one you suggested. But should one team be able to go to nationals instead of an equally talented team because they happened to get a better draw in the qualification rounds? I don't think so. And on top of that, there will always be some teams of students that scrape along with little to no sponsor or school support, but work just as hard as those that do. Should these teams never be able to go to nationals?

My personal favorite idea is to skip Disneyland. Have the competition outside on a dry lake bed in New Mexico. NASA's a big FIRST supporter - have it at White Sands. There's plenty of room for all. We'll camp out - we'll have us a big ole time! :)

To me, the biggest thing wrong with the rule being discussed is that it will probably result in a lot of 'cheating.' Cheating is not 'gracious professionalism,' but teams which find themselves in desperate situations may be inclined to chance it.

What I am thinking of is a team which breaks a major part or assembly near the end of one of their regionals. If it is something that would be hard to make in the pits at the next competition or that they may not have time to make in the machine shop, they may be inclined to make the needed parts at home and 'sneak' them into the next competition.

While no team would want to do this, it could, and probably will happen if it would be a team's only way to get their broken robot running for nationals.

Re: Sad News.....
 

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :cool: :cool:

Kit, i agree with you... A team that NEEDS to manufacture a part and does so, will probably do so no matter what ruling we encounter. I think, however, that many of us are forgetting what appears to be the intention of FIRST with this ruling. It seems that they are trying to level the playing field for rookie teams. Let's face it, if they wanted to see complicated machines this year rather than tractor-pull competitors, they would have put ONE 10-point black ball on each side of the field. They're more concerned that the experienced teams have the ability to quickly develop and manufacture a drive system, allowing weeks to develop a good ball gatherer. Yes, they expect many teams to go for the balls on the field already, but I, for one, don't know of too many teams who have a working gatherer capable of actually putting more than a couple of balls in the goal. --Especially when one hit on the last ball in the row will send the rest scattering. Many teams have told me that they put everything they had into a Bully-bot, capable of taking the goal away from some team who might have been skilled enough to put balls into a goal. This encourages aggressive strategies.
If FIRST really wanted to help rookies they would change the rule!! It is less likely that a rookie team would know which systems would fail in aggressive competition. Thus, they would also be less likely to have premanufactured spares shipped with the bot.
If they wanted to level the playing field in terms of wealthy teams v. poorer teams they're wrong again. Sugar daddy sponsors can easily afford to ship practically two bots in the first crate--thus complying with the rule. Poor teams? --They have to manufacture during the competition.
Finallly, those teams, like ours, who go to one regional then to the nats. would hate to spend the tens of thousands of dollars to get everyone to Fla. only to find that we won't be able to compete because we broke down in the regionals and couldn't repair it in the ill-equipped shops at the regionals. Explain where the learning and positive experiences are comming from in this situation.

Re: THE MAP IS FULL OF HOLES
 

Those three days will help you believe me! Last year our team went way overboard in the original design of the robot... To make a long story short; at the regionals we just plain stunk!! It was a battle of ego's in the design and unfortunately we placed I think second to last in our regional. In those three days after the comp. we totally redesigned our robot. It physically performed a heck of alot better at Nationals, but unfortunately we were still subject to some bad alliances so we came in near last again.

I wonder if FIRST changed the rule because of teams like mine....
I wonder if they will not be checking the robots twice this year like they did last year, once at a regional and once at the Nats. Maybe their just trying to save money by not having inspectors at both venues!

One can only Guess what FIRST's motives were?!?!?!?!?
Logical or otherwise???????

I meant that the three days wouldn't help you fix the robot two minutes before the final match. You would still have to sit out the final match, and hope that you have a good partner.

You are correct. However, I think Nick was referring to something else. If you break your gear box in the last match of the regional, you then have to ship your robot in the next hour. Therefore, you cannot get your gearbox fixed before the next competition. When you get to the next competition, you are limited to hand tools and the inadequate shop facilities that are provided. These tools are not going to repair something as complex as a gear box. It would be nice to at least be able to take the gearbox with you, fix it, and ship it by Tuesday.

One big problem with this ruling is that it provides some motivation to not be in the finals. If you're not in the finals, you get an extra three hours or so of pit time to fix your robot before it ships. If you're in the finals, you only have the time from your last match to when they start hauling boxes away. If you play in the last match, that might only be 30 minutes.

I believe the original intent of this rule is to stop drastic redesigns of robots as well as limit the practice time with the robot (so teams don't get huge practice advantages by going to a bunch of regionals). I don't see any problem with allowing teams to take home their broken parts so they can fix them. If they want to keep teams from spending three weeks "fixing" them, then make a rule that the replacement parts must be shipped by Tuesday.