Re: If you could change one rule - eliminate ship requirement discussion
 

I'd be curious to know what the contracted rate is with MCS for the included drayage? I'm guessing it comes to about $100-$200 on average for each team. Thus that savings seems hardly worth it. Fed Ex donates shipping for most teams doing just one competition like rookies so there goes that arguement. I guess I'm not sure the ship requirement will reduce the costs for the newer, cash strapped teams. I'd still like to know what can be done to bring down the cost of this registration to below $5000. And you know what I'm getting burned out from? "Will we raise the $$ in time?", "fundraising activities", etc..

Re: If you could change one rule - eliminate ship requirement discussion
 

I agree with Andy's idea but think there needs to be an addendum. I think the ship date should be moved to the weekend after the final regional. Only teams attending nationals would need to ship their robot. This solution fixes the same problems Andy Baker suggested and more:

A.) Most teams would benefit from the reduced shipment rate for sending the robot across country.

B.) The national competition still retains the feeling of "the olden days." Where you had to pack up your robot by a certain time and ship it. Then rush into the venue and unpack it. I think it will be quite nostalgic after the regional competition.

Re: If you could change one rule - eliminate ship requirement discussion
 

Some racing series (for example NASCAR) limit the amount of practice testing. Some sports (some high school sports for example) don't allow organized practice during the summer. These have an effect that is very similar to taking the machine away.

Ken

Re: I rule change - no shipping the robot
 

They'res one Key issue with shipping the robot yourself and not going through Fed Ex

1) Is anyone that dedicated to drive cross country to play a second regional or even nationals or forget all that the main regional - we all love FIRST in many more ways then the normal person can imagine but are we willing to make that drive when FIRST has a shipping company that takes all that stress away.

2) Gas is not cheap so this goes hand in hand with no.1

I'm not stating this to knock down our support and dedication to FIRST but one thing we need to realize is that FIRST is making it so much easier asnd cheaper by having things set the way they are. Yes theres alot of pros and cons to this but when it comes to shipping your own bot all b/c it eliminates registration fees and gives the teams more time to work on the robot I say stick with the current system why b/c it works.

1) First is the cost of the Van or small truck to ship stuff to and from the events

2) gas and basic maintenance

3) insurance

4) vehicle registration

this is just to purchase the vehicle in question to accomodate safe and delicate handling of the robot then you need drivers and not just one a few to help unload the stuff. It's just mind boggling to just think of what you need to take care of the job yourself

Just leave the shipping date there - it creates more suspense more excitement and its the incentive that helps the teams get the job done when you can actually say shes gone after 6 long hard weeks of coutless hrs of staying awake and hitting the programmer for not getting it right the first time =)

****Edit****
OR
When Signing up for registration they're should be 2 options
1) I will Ship the Robot and its tools or Accessories Myself
2) I will Ship the Robot and its tools or Accessories via FED EX

If option 1 is chosen if gives the teams some lee way to build their robot but they are expected to make the right legal jugdement calls while during the build period if the team is noted as having a robot unfit for the competition option 2 gets automatically selected and must stick with the team until the team either seizes from operation or the rules change. basically they're should be no reason why your robot failes to perform during practice and game play if you were given the extra time at your own request to make sure all the weeds have been picked from a finely grown lawn. Also you must sign a waiver that states FED EX is not responsible for any damages done to your robot. But remember this You shipped your robot to the competition you are NOT allowed to all of a sudden change your mind and ship your robot through FED EX to its next regional national or school - you got it their at your own free will and you will need to move it at your own free will.

If option 2 is chosen then fed - ex takes care of everything

or alternative option 1 allow the teams to transport their robots themselves at there own free will only if the competition is local to them and it can't be a certain determined distance radious of where the school is at. and once again the rest of option 1 applies the team needs to get it in and out of its destination on there own free will. they may not decide to have fed ex do the transporting. the only difference to this option is that it is an open option to those who are building the robot is local to the venue so that not as much travel time is required and for those who are at a greater distance from their school to the venue must select option 2 yes things change as far as venue determination, teams will be given one week before their 1 st selected regional takes place to change their mind and how they want to ship their robot.

C:\Mikespointlessrant\END RANT.DOC - last altered 10/27/05 @ 1947hrs

Re: If you could change one rule - eliminate ship requirement discussion
 

I understand what you are stating, but in every one of my years of FIRST we have had people on the team drive to a regional or to nationals. Sometimes it was because they were carrying things that the team needed and other times it was just to support the team. We are not saying that teams should go out and buy a box truck to haul everything around or go out and spend thousands on a trailer. I’m sure that if your team leader asked the members of the team if a parent drives a minivan or truck and would be willing to drive to a competition at the team’s expense, I would be willing to bet that someone on your team would volunteer. I say this only because when ever Mrs. Hughes (Team 27 team leader) asked the parents on our team if someone would be willing to drive to competitions we got outstanding support from our parents. A simple pickup truck or a minivan is perfect for shipping a robot. Robot’s in FIRST are not that big and not that heavy that we need to pay Fed Ex to ship them, when we can do it ourselves cheaper. I can speak from experience, robots fit very well inside a minivan. After transporting our practice robot around all season, you can fit a robot, all of your tools, all of your parts boxes, all of your batteries and chargers, you extension cords, and controls inside of a minivan and still be able to seat 4 people all inside a 2005 Dodge minivan. Either it’s great packing on our part; great Engineering on Daimler Chryslers part or it’s not very difficult to do. We did it every other day last season. I'm pretty sure that if most teams were given the opportunity to have two or three weeks longer to work on the robot as well as have the robot in between competitions, they would be more than willing to drive to competitions. Teams make it work in off season competitions, why wouldn't they be able to make it work during the season?

Re: If you could change one rule - eliminate ship requirement discussion
 

To go through this one item at a time:
First off, 330 already takes all the stuff except the robot and some other stuff that stays in the crate in a van. Howver, the Championship is just too far for us to do that. That's when we pack everything in the crate. This appies for our home regional and our other regional.
Second, driving at team expense--you have to pay for gas, which I'm sure some teams can afford these days, but taking the robot clear to Atlanta for nationals is getting beyond us, and then you have getting a couple weeks off school to drive there and back, it's not worth it. Arizona, Sacramento, and SVR are pushing it already if we were to do them at team expense. And, of course, you need to coordinate driver schedules.
Third: A pickup truck is not the best because you need to secure the bot. Plus you have the weather problem. A minivan can hold a robot and all its competition parts and tools, yes, but at least for us, that involves loss of seating for all except the driver and one other person. A fullsize, you could have four or five people and all the tools and the robot and the cart, but how many of us have those that don't need to take siblings along or something like that? Oh, and then there are the signs, giveaways, etc. to deal with. And how many of us build a practice bot and use it to practice packing with?
Fourth: Team do it in the offseason just fine, yes. Would they be able to make it work in the regular season? Probably. The difference is that in the offseason, the competitions are more spread out. You might have one in June and not have another till October. You can take it easy. In the regular season, everything is compressed. You have schoolwork to make up, sleep to catch up on, and then you need to tweak the robot. You are in for STUDENT burnout.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that some teams ship their robots anyway if they are going to, say, IRI.

Woule eliminating ship date be good or bad? That comes down to what is best for your team. But if someone has a long way to go to an event, the teams that are in the same city have a huge advantage. If FIRST wants a level playing field, they will need to keep the ship date.

Re: If you could change one rule - eliminate ship requirement discussion
 

I will admit I'm speaking from my personal FIRST experiences. I agree with you that it all depends on your team’s location. For your team it makes sense to ship the robot to nationals, but for a team like ours it doesn't. It's a 14 hour drive From Clarkston, MI to Atlanta Georgia. Our parents this year made it in two days, but we as a team rode a bus last year non stop. We could have thrown the robot in the bottom of the bus to get it there, and it wouldn't have cost us anything extra. Your viewing it as the entire team is traveling in one vehicle. Send the robot and the rest of the team can get to the location how you normally would. It just makes no sense to me to pay hundreds of dollars to ship the robot 50 miles away for a competition. Plus it just sits in a warehouse for weeks between competitions. That is all time that teams could be making improvements to the robot and making FIRST as a whole more competitive. I don’t understand student burnout. During FIRST season I work from the day the season kicks off to the day we celebrate at nationals. I manage school, homework, FIRST and still manage to get sleep and happen to eat 3 meals a day if you can believe that. Even during competition season, we still practiced 3 or 4 times a week, and still met as a team. There's always work to be done through out the entire season, so student burnout would be no different for me if we didn’t have a ship date then the way it is right now. I also wouldn't say we built a practice robot just so that we can practice how to pack a car. We couldn't have the real robot so we had to build a practice robot to give our new drivers experience and our programmer’s time to program. In no way was it just to practice how to load a car, It was the single most important thing that contributed to our overall success on the field. I understand your concerns and agree with you that location plays a huge role in where you stand on this issue. I'm looking at it from the money stand point and from the stand point of Team 27's location. With the economy the way it is many teams can't afford to even go to nationals or compete in FIRST because it is so expensive. Team 27 lost its sponsor 2 years ago and still hasn't found a single replacement sponsor and who knows if they will. Going to the close regionals in Michigan is key to us competing. The days of us going to 3 regionals and nationals are very hard to imagine. So if we could eliminate the costs of shipping that would be a great savings.

Re: If you could change one rule - eliminate ship requirement discussion
 

You're right, if the entire team is traveling in one vehicle. However, trying to get all the BeachBots in one family-owned vehicle is impossible. Renting a tourbus is also quite difficult. Now, we typically take about four or five vehicles to our "away" competion. That's for about 20-30 people, plus luggage, plus robot equipment. Oh, and we don't necessarily travel as one huge goup. Some people come in later or earlier depending on their schedule.

You are also right about it making no sense to pay a lot just to ship the robot 50 miles and have it sit around for weeks. However, there are teams that have no competition in their state, and FIRST teams may not have enough money to pay the expenses. Under the current system, Fedex provides free shipping to one event. How many teams that barely suvive now could pay the shipping rates without them? And for some teams, there is no way to drive the robot to a competition. So there may be ways to improve that part, but they escape me.

Yes, eliminating the cost of shipping would be a great savings. But when you consider that the shipping as is is already close to free (and enforces the build period), then you remove that, and substitute gas costs, do you really save?

We could debate this forever, but if teams are responsible to get their own robot to competitions, I think that there will be a lot fewer teams in FIRST. How does that further the purpose of FIRST?

Re: If you could change one rule - eliminate ship requirement discussion
 

Your're exactly right, we could debate this forever. The real issue here is not really cost, it's the extra time to work on the robot and the ability to make changes in between competitons as well as having the most balenced, fair playing field as possible. For a team like Team 27, shipping the robot makes no sense because there are 3 regionals with in 250 miles of where we build our robot. I guess for other teams, traveling and shipping tools is a huge issue and for them shipping there stuff makes a lot of sense. The system works great in OCCRA because all of the teams are in a very small area and it would be pointless to ship the robots to a competiton 25 miles away. Speaking from my expierences, if FIRST could find a way to input a sytem where we could work on the competition robot from day 1 to the end of the season and eliminate the ship while still creating a level playing field, FIRST as a whole would be a lot better.