[moderated] Collaboration
 

FIRST ruled. People want to discuss. Reply to this thread, all responses are moderated and may take a little while to show up (if they show up, at all).

This thread should discuss the general idea of collaboration, and not specific teams or people. Gracious professionalism applies, as usual.

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and...

This was taken from the Q&A section 5.3.2.2

Re: [moderated] Collaboration
 

I have to say that this was one of the sticker issues that FIRST has had to deal with and...

...I think they gave a pretty good answer.

The answer is clear in what it is trying to say. They give reasons. Over all, I have to say that this was a pretty good ruling.

I still have concerns about possible nightmare scenerios at some future, but we can deal with that when and if that nightmare ever starts to become a reality.

Over all. Nicely done FIRST.

Joe J.

Re: [moderated] Collaboration
 

Tho somewhat dissapointed with the descision, I still believe they gave justification for it.

FIRST is about the furthering of science and technology and in their eyes it does.

I still believe however that to keep up teams now must collaborate, or else in a sense be pushed out of any chance to win.

However its just a new avenue, nearly like everything new thing FIRST throws at us, it might not be readily accepted. It is to be taken in stride and I believe it will bring new dimmension to FIRST, and I'm excited to see where it takes us.

So all in all good job FIRST, I'm not sure where this road less traveled will take us in the coming future, but I am sure excited to find out.

Dan

Re: [moderated] Collaboration
 

I have been thinking a lot about this collaboration issue since the first threads were posted and have realized that this is what FIRST is all about. If you look at the games they have produced they have changed in format from every team to themselves to a complete collaboration of forces and now and alliance. I disagree with all aspects of a team’s robot being the same but at the same time I understand how input from many different sources and people who have different experiences. Take this message board for instance, at the beginning of ever season there is talk of strategies, ideas and how things will be played for that season and in a cense that is collaboration.

I guess my overall point is that collaboration is part of every aspect of FIRST and teams choose for themselves how much they wish to work with others and this is why we have such diversity in this competition


On a side note I think that the official FIRST response to the situation was very professional and a good solution to the "problem" at hand.

Re: [moderated] Collaboration
 

Bravo to FIRST!

Bravo to CD!

Bravo to the bulldogs and poofs!

Bravo to the beginning of Regionals!

Let the fun Begin!

Ken Loyd
Team 64

Re: [moderated] Collaboration
 

Here is my take...

1. I am not in favor of the decision.

2. I wasn't in favor of alliances at first either.

3. I was dead wrong about alliances.

4. Put 2 and 2 together.

Lets put it this way, Kingman and the Poofs went out on a limb to try something that could shape the future of FIRST. They faced a huge firestorm from many members of the FIRST community for their efforts. They handled themselves in a very admirable and exemplary (sp.?) way. If all the teams who collaborate in the future carry themselves like Kingman and the Poofs did...it might just work.

Finally, Kudo's to FIRST for the well thought out and explained answer. Like I said, I may not agree with the answer, but I am very happy with how FIRST handled it. I said in the past, for FIRST to make games interesting, they have to take chances. All of those chances are hit or miss. Here is another one of those chances...and I hope it works out well.

Good Luck,
Andy Grady

Re: [moderated] Collaboration
 

I have supported the 254/60 collaboration from the start. With that said, I obviously agree with the FIRST ruling.

Collaboration will not reduce your workload by 50%. Effective collaboration is not easy. Collaboration is not for everyone. Team 217 will probably not collaborate in the future, because we have a very large team which is hard to manage.

For those of you that do not support collaboration, let me leave you with this scenario:

Here is team A (the ThunderChickens, for example) with several CNC mills, lathes, grinders, etc at their disposal. Also, they have 14 CAD workstations with SolidWorks and a 36" laser plotter. They can design and build pretty much anything they want. They also have several software mentors and students that are awesome at C programming.

Here are teams B and C. Team B has an awesome machine shop that has CNC mills, etc. They have no CAD design to speak of (everything on a napkin), but they have mad software writing skills. Team C has design workstations and students who can run them, but no high tech machining capability. Teams B & C team up to do a collaborative effort. Together they design some simple parts, some complicated parts, and some parts in between. They divide the machining up by who has the ability to machine each part, they divide the software development up based on who has the ability, and they divide the detail design (not concepting) by who has the ability. The result is the combined capacity to do what team A can do by themselves. With the ruling on cost to machine not counting against teams, we may even machine parts for people in the future.

I, personally like to be in the team A situation. If I wasn't, you bet we would collaborate with another team that matched our weaknesses with strengths.

-Paul

Re: [moderated] Collaboration
 

I am reminded of something that Dean said at the 2003 kickoff.

I believe that this ruling is not fair in the context of the game. But, I agree that it is consistent with the higher level ideals of FIRST. I believe that collaboration at some level is a good thing for FIRST. However, I am worried about what collaboration on the level seen this year will mean for the future of FIRST.

My personal motivation for volunteering in FIRST is twofold. I strongly agree with the ideals and high level objectives of FIRST. I go to bed at night feeling good about having done something positive and contributing to my community. But, when I go in early, stay late, design, strategize, motivate, and pour my sweat and blood into a robot, I do it because I want to do whatever I can to help my team win.

I don't want to come off as melodramatic, but, in all honesty, if FIRST abandons fairness, I will abandon FIRST. I'll have to see how this all plays out in the next few years.

The bottom line is that if the rules of the competition create an environment in which there is no reasonable chance for my team to win, I will find something else to do with my time, money, and energy. I do not need FIRST if I want to have a positive impact on my community. FIRST needs me and others like me if FIRST wants to continue to grow.

Re: [moderated] Collaboration
 

I applaud FIRST decision on collaboration. It enhances the FIRST experience ten fold. I think Paul put it best in his description. FIRST in a sense is trying to get teams to be like a business. Teams split up between marketing and technical aspects. Teams have leaders that essentially act like the boss. And now teams have to learn to work together. In the real world, companies are constantly working together. This just adds a new challenge for teams to work more as a business.

-Pat

Re: [moderated] Collaboration
 

Wow. A lot's been said, and before it's done, I believe a lot more will be said.

As so many have pointed out, collaboration will allow two teams which are at a disadvantage to overcome that and raise the bar. And inspire more students.

But I can definitely see the point at which this begins to fall apart.

Many companies have engineering centers across the world that work together today. Removing obstacles of language translation and time zone differences, I don't believe collaboration is as difficult as some team's make it out to be. It's been going on in the real world for some time, and while there may be a short adjustment period, it makes things easier across the board.

Where's the downside?

If two teams collaborating is good, wouldn't three teams collaborating be better? It would create a better performing robot, and more students would be inspired by the awesome experience. Wouldn't five teams be better than three? What about ten?

At some point it becomes more impractical because it's difficult to coordinate several sites, but it can be done without too much difficulty on every Saturday, even for five to ten teams.

If these are teams with real complimentary abilities (as in Paul's post), that is one thing. However, as teams become better equipped and as more teams are added to the "super-alliance", I see some sort of regulation being necessary - to prevent one "super-alliance" from becoming so dominant that other teams feel there is no point in participating, and students of the remaining teams become uninspired.

I know that TRW has the ability to coordinate several facilities via NetMeeting, video conferences, etc. and does this with US facilities as well as locations throughout Italy, Germany, Korea, and Japan just to name a few. Designs are shared, reviewed, improved, etc. Again, choosing the proper time becomes an issue with time zones, but it can be worked out.

And based on my experience, I strongly believe that when designing a subsystem or component, it is a lot easier to optimize for weight, strength, performance, etc. over a certain period and coordinate with other facilities as to how it will work with the entire system, than to optimize an entire system for the same characteristics given the same time constraints.

I would be shocked if Delphi / GM / Ford didn't have this ability. This is not to single out companies that I expect would be collaborating in the future, but more to mention some teams (or sponsoring companies) that, if they did collaborate in the future would make it incredibly difficult for a rookie team to be competitive against. Perhaps difficult enough to persuade teams to not form or drop out.

It is true that today there are teams with little to no engineering support. But if collaborating continues , let alone grows, I would hate to listen in on the brainstorming and concept generation meetings that these teams would have, as I imagine they'd go something like:

"What about a robot that grabs the goals and pulls them around?"
"What about a robot that collects balls and delivers them to the player station?"
"What's the point? You know we won't be able to compete with the Delphi Super-Alliance, or the GM Super-Alliance, or ..."

Raising the bar for robot performance is good. Inspiring more students is better. But inspiring select students on superior teams with significantly overlapping capabilities at the cost of the future of the competition (and all it stands for) is, in my opinion, not worth it. I don't mean to imply this is what happened this year. I'm speaking of where I see this leading to.

Some people have even compared this to NASCAR. Where all teams have the same robots (because they all worked in the same Super Alliance) and the competition comes down to which students operate the robot the best. This might still be exciting to watch, but I doubt it will still inspire students to pursue scientific and technological fields.

Re: [moderated] Collaboration
 

Personally I think this decision from FIRST has crossed a new boundary, and in the long run it might not be a good thing.

In the past teams have always helped each other out, sharing knowledge, experience, resources, spare parts, designs from previous years - primarilly sharing knowledge and resources.

the thing that is different now is not only can you tell another team how to do something (shared knowledge) you can actaully DO it for them. Brainstorm, design, fabricate, build, test, debug, and then say "here you go - here is your completed arm, drivetrain, tranny, SW, or the whole machine!"

that will reduce FIRST from a robotics design competition to a robotics sporting competition - you no longer have to account for who built your robot, or where you got it from - another team can build the whole thing for you now, and you only drive it during the matches (that is not what has happened so far, but it is the extreem of what this new ruling allows)

thats the line FIRST has crossed, from showing other teams HOW to design and build, to DOING it for them.

I know that FIRST already supplies default transmissions and default code - enough to get a basic frame up and running - but that is only a starting point - you could not compete very effectively if you only assembled what came in the KOP and added nothing to it

but now things have changed. Now you can get a very sophisticated transmission, or have someone else write very complex code for you, and you can use it in the games, never having to do any design, build, test, debug work yourself - why is this different?

Now there is no incentive to do it yourself - almost anyone could design something better than the stock FIRST drivetrain, but can you design a drivetrain better than teams who win regionls or chamionships repeatedly? Why push yourself out of your comfort zone? why push yourself to learn something new, to work on something you have never done before when you can get a final product from another team that is probabally better than what you can do on your own?

Is this the direction FIRST really wants to take, to eliminate the design competition and focus only on the playfield competition?

And what about the design awards? if 3 or 4 teams show up with identical robots, how can you give a design award to one of them without giving it to all 4 teams? how do you know which team designed the part of the robot that the award is being granted for?

I dont mean to be the devils advocate on this subject - there are many areas within FIRST for teams to work together and make the experiece more rewarding on all sides. Personally I think that allowing one team to DO the work for another will dilute the experience of the receiving team. You learn so much more by trying to solve a problem yourself, even if your solution is not very good or effective on the playfield - at least by then you will know intimately WHY it did not work and have some idea of what you could have done better. If someone else builds all or part of your bot for you then what have you gained?

Build a man a fire and he will be warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life :c) To really set someone on fire with a passion for engineering and science, you have to let them struggle through the design cycle, to push themselves past everything they have done before. And most important, to see for themselves "I can do this!" I believe this is one of the core value of FIRST.

Re: [moderated] Collaboration
 

The entire collaboration issue reminds me greatly of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Program. The fact that two teams were able to make this work is impressive.

I also think that FIRST's answer is very professional and makes good sense. Kudos to them.

Re: [moderated] Collaboration
 

You know, on a much less obvious level, many of the Ford teams have been doing this kind of thing for a few years. In the Detroit area, there's Team Ford FIRST, which is a group of Ford sponsored teams. Many of the teams work within a few miles from each other, because it IS the Motor City, and they've become a "union of teams" as such. Every year, you see two or three of Ford robots that range from looking slightly to remarkably similar - that's because many of the teams colaborate between each other during the inital weeks - strategizing, planning, and designing. They share resources with each other, and I don't think they still do this, but they used to run scrimmages against each other around this time of year.

Albeit this case isn't exactly the same thing - I just see it as the next step up, so I wasn't really surprised by it.


Referencing the car analogy, sometimes the major OEM's do collaborate. The Mercury Villager, for example, is a joint venture between Ford-Mercury and Nissan (The Nissan counterpart is called the "Quest"). The late Mercury Cougar was based off of a Mazda platform. Many GM divisions (Pontiac, Olds, Buick, Saturn) end up building one vehicle and slapping a different badge on it.
The point being that most of these collaborations aren't as successful as the companies hope. The sell a lot of cars, but they aren't really "revolutionary" or even above average. They're just mediocre cars that some people buy, and then they fade off and are forgotten.
I don't mean to insult the Bulldogs or the Poofs by this, I just don't think that they'll be any better than most other robots out there. I hope that they do good, but my feeling is that they won't be the best two teams out there.

Re: [moderated] Collaboration
 

I'm still undecided about collaboration as a strategy. I can see how it can damage the game in the future, but I also see how much it can help to inspire students.

That said, I was against it initially, because I couldn't see how it was legal within the rules given to us at the beginning of the competition. However, once again, FIRST has amazed me because they were able to find a happy medium. They have an interpretation which allows 254 and 60 to compete, and also uphold the rules.

Now, of course, this ruling only stands for this year. I'm sure that FIRST is watching this thread, and they will be listening closely at the Team Forums this year. So, this discussion has shifted from whether it is illegal or not, but whether it should be legal in the future, and more importantly WHY it should be legal or illegal in the future.

Re: [moderated] Collaboration
 

I have some more comments on the subtleties of collaboration that I will post later. But I do have one thought about the "full-blown" version of collaboration (to the point of co-design and co-building) that has caused all the uproar, and I am very surprised that this has not come up anywhere in the various discussions so far.

As a COMPETITOR, I just absolutely LOVE the fact that these two teams have essentially built the same machine this year, and I hope they continue to do so forever! Why? Because they have just made my job 50% easier!

Huh?

OK, here goes. Every year I get to praise the heavens because our team rarely has to go up against 254 and 60 (thank goodness they are on the wrong side of the country!). Their solutions to the game are always so good, and so creative, that we have to spend a very great amount of time trying to figure out how to defeat them should we ever oppose them in a match (the same can be said for Team Hammond, Chief Delphi, Team 122, and many others). When considering these two teams, we always had to come up with two counter-strategies, develop two sets of plays, practice two sets of scenarios, etc. **

But now, if we can figure out how to beat one of them, then we know how to beat the other. We get twice the benefit for half the work! Everyone posting concerns about how closely teams have collaborated has intimated the result of the collaboration will always be an unbeatable machine. I am not convinced that is the case. We have seen in the past that every "unbeatable" machine has a weakness, and it is just a matter of exploiting it (e.g. even the mighty Beatty Machine in 2002 lost a few rounds). The result of teams collaborating (to the point of co-designing) may be better machines, but I am a long way from assuming they will be unbeatable (or even the "best" machines). Given that, our job is to look for the weaknesses in the design - and if we find it, then we can "kill two birds with one stone."

A concern was expressed earlier in the thread about what would happen if five or ten teams all worked together to build identical machines. Well, they would build ten identical machines, with ten implementations of the same strengths. But they would also have ten copies of the same weaknesses. If we can find it, we have just figured out how to defeat ten teams all at once. So if I hear about ten teams that want to get together, my only response will be "BRING IT ON! :p "

At the end of the day, I think that the off-the-playfield ramifications of the "full-blown collaboration" are a very positive thing, for the reasons stated in the FIRST answers, and many others. As a potential competitor ON the play field, I like it even more!

-dave

** note: a few times in past years, our response strategy has been to build a machine that falls apart before we can ever compete against these guys, and we therefore avoid the entire issue altogether - perhaps not the brightest strategy, but hey, it works for us! :)