Re: The Triplet Challenge
 

You need to caveat your challenge to include a statement about long-term support. If a rookie team is given a competitive design their first year they will do well, have fun, and be ready to come back the next year. If the handouts suddenly cease and they field a bad robot that does not work and is not competitive they will probably fold. Where are you then? Inspiration does not equate to a bunch of smiling excited kids. They have a winning robot, of course they're excited! When they're still excited through the rough times, then you have something.

I've been to a regional with a robot that was not competitive and it was extremely frustrating and stressful. It was no fun for the kids cheering when the robot didn't move in many of the matches. Say what you want about FIRST, but the regional is all about the matches. Bust your butt for six weeks plus, then drive three hours to watch a paperweight. If the team did not have some fantastic mentors and an army of organized parents and teachers that team would be long gone.

Re: The Triplet Challenge
 

FIRST is an engineering design contest / competition - who can come up with the best engineering solution to the problem that has been presented to solve: a machine that can play a game on the field.

Teams average 120 hours designing and building their machine during the six week build period, about 20 hours in the pits at each regional modifying, testing and maintaining their machine, and about 20 to 30 minutes on the field actually playing the game. That comes out to 9,600 minutes 'off the field' and 30 minutes 'on the field'.

If you collaborate with another team you spend less than 1% of your time 'competing' against that team, 99% of your time collaborating with that team, and 100% of your time competing against all the other FIRST teams.

Re: The Triplet Challenge
 

NiagaraFIRST

So with this Triplet Challenge I can assume that after 2 years you will start to break away and form separate collaborations with other teams you individually start, after all I assume you are all well off, and have very understanding students by now, which can mentor rookie teams or stuggling teams... OR ... Is this just a way to make more teams have carbon copied robots thus taking the pressure off of your collaboration, allowing you to continue to have a killer collaboration, with identical robots... which go from regional to regional inspiring the crowds by winning them all (even though you apparently are still competing with each other)... so what is it? will carbon copied robots continue? will your collaboration continue? or have your teams reached a point where they will branch off, and add more numbers to the thriving NiagaraFIRST coalition?

David

Re: The Triplet Challenge
 

if we followed this line of logic, much of the behaviour that is termed 'GP' would no longer be acceptable. no more loaning parts, tools, or skills to needy teams. no more shared machine shops or practice Fields. no more mentoring rookie teams. we'd go from 'co-opertition' to total competition. the truth is, collaboration has been going on for as far as i can remember (i.e. the 6 years i've been involved), just in varying degrees. whether we're giving away spare wheels, chasing bugs in the electrical system, or helping to program an autonomous mode, any time we help another team to become more competitive, are we not 'collaborating' with them?

Re: The Triplet Challenge
 

no, you are not. The difference is the core engineering challenge. Here is an engineering problem to solve - YOU come up with the solution.

I can mentor your team and show you step by step how engineers take a problem through the complete design cycle, I can lend you computers and tools and shop time, give you access to my machinists and welder, show you how to hook up wires and program the control system - ALL without solving the design problem for you.

This thread has turned into a 100% collaboration vs 0% debate - I never took that position. The first post in this thread (in my opinion) took it too far by saying that (if necessary) give a new team a complete robot design and let them copy everything.

I dont think collaboration is a bad thing, esp if you have one team that is rich in mechanical engineers and has a big machine shop, and you have another team with nothing but electrical engineers and SW programmers - If there is a natural divide then YES work together.

But dont take it to extreems. Dont let it end up where one team is only doing one small part, and esp dont give a team a complete design to copy 100%.

That is where this thread started drawing flack and criticism - going too far to the extreem. There are drawbacks and tradeoffs and fairness issues when teams collaborate. When you take it to the extreem then the drawbacks outweigh the good you are attempting to accomplish.

Re: The Triplet Challenge
 

If you take it to "the extreme", you are no longer collaborating. Many people in this thread have come to the table essentially saying "Paint by Number teams are bad". I don't think that's what Collaboration is.

People here have said you take the I out of FIRST when you collaborate. I don't think you do. If you are collaborating you merely have a larger group of people working on 1 problem, who happen to have different team numbers. "Build by Number" teams are not what collaboration is about. Sure if you collaborate with a rookie, the veteran team may have more input becuase they know their way around the block, but if the veterans merely hand the rookies a robot to copy, they aren't collaborating. They're robbing deserving students of an opportunity of a lifetime.

Re: The Triplet Challenge
 

Although your sarcastic remarks don't warrant a response, I will give one anyway. People say I am too nice.

The truth is we don't know what will happen next year. I hope that Notre Dame High School in Welland will become the newest member of NiagaraFIRST. Based on their progress so far as a virtual team. they should be able to manage to build their own robot during their rookie season (as long as they can keep using the shop they found). I hope that 1503 and/or 1680 can build their own robot. We will sit down as a group at the end of the season and make the decision that we feel is best for the current and future students in the area.

Our teams have worked very hard for the success we have had this year. I am not going to apologize for winning a few regionals. We built inspiring robots, we seeded high, and we picked the best team available (although, I was a little unsure watching 217's autonomous mode in the semis at GTR - wow!).

Is collaboration the only way to grow? Of course not.
Does it work? So far so good. We'll see how the next couple years go.

Now, can we please keep this debate civil.

We will continue to defend our side, to show how collaboration can aid growth and we will listen to others opinions on how we can improve.

Re: The Triplet Challenge
 

Giving a new team a complete robot design is extreme and definitely not the ideal solution. If you can find a way to work together (as our teams did) then that is definitely the preferred method. However, if that's what it takes to get a team started then so be it. I would have no problem with that. Being involved in FIRST is addictive, especially when you get too see your robot do what it was designed to do.

Re: The Triplet Challenge
 

if you have a mechanically complete robot that is theoretically able to fulfill the requirements, but is unable to because it isn't programed or wired properly, then has it still solved the design challenge? i don't think so. the challenge is to build a competitive robot, not to design a competitive concept.

i agree that collaboration should be a give and take relationship, that all parties involved should contribute (more or less) equally. obviously, this would be the ideal collaboration.

what everyone seems to miss about 'the triplet challenge' is that the copy part applies to a team that would not otherwise exist, if not for the collaboration. i expect this scenario will be rare, but if thats what it takes to get more people involved with FIRST then i'm for it. the question isn't (or wasn't) whether you were for two individual teams, or one team copying another, but rather if you want a new team to copy an existing one, or to not exist at all. wouldn't you rather these students get a glimpse of FIRST, rather than sitting at home unaware, playing video games and watching TV?

if you can't tell, im one of those that believe "if the students are inspired, its all good"

Re: The Triplet Challenge
 

Well I am disappointed to see that this has turned into a Collaboration is good/bad debate.

While this idea may not be the best way to spread FIRST every where I know for a fact is would be the most effective way to do it in my community and in other area High schools. I would love to see more collaboration in RI especially if it means that more teams would be started. While I see no need for 71 and 254 to ever collaborate, I would love to see those teams work with other teams (I know 254 has done this) This helps to blur the line between the higher and lower level teams. If collaboration helps a team to come into existence or to jump up to a higher level then it is great, If it doesn't then maybe it is not necessary. I know that Niagara FIRST is not the only collaboration but their actions and performance in the GTR finals, helping to fix the bot they were competing against. 1114 is definitely one of the premier teams in first and is clearly helping to bring their siblings to that level, It will not be long before you see the Niagara community support all three programs so they can split up and continue to spread first either by new collaborations or by other methods( I am sure Karthik will think of something). In the mean time I hope that all of the collaborations continue to thrive, I have never seen harm done due to a collaboration, for that reason I have nothing bad to say about this method to spread the FIRST message.

Re: The Triplet Challenge
 

I am sorry if I came across rude, that was not my intent, I just noticed that the whole topic you had been defending the collaboration you had this year... now don't get me wrong I personally don't have a problem with collaborations, what I have a problem with is 10% of all robots at a regional being identical (as we saw at Waterloo) ... I do not see this being the meaning of FIRST, nor inspirational (as I find showing others that you can be effective with an array of designs inspirational, and at the same time innovative), yes your robot was an amazing accomplishment, and I applaud you on your design, its just I don't agree teams as developed as yourselves should have the need for carbon copied robots, I'm ok with it however if it is sharing individual designs with rookie teams or struggling teams. Sorry again.

David

Re: The Triplet Challenge
 

Most everyone seems to be focusing on how collaboration affects the final inspiration of the students involved in such a partnership (the output of the process); however, few have commented on the effects different forms of collaboration have on the mentors (the "equipment" driving the process) and the team's resources (the inputs of the process). Inspiration is neither a free nor an easy thing to create. Teams stepping outside of their comfort zone in an attempt to increase the amount of inspiration they generate is an even more difficult challenge. There are real costs associated with altering the inspiration process via collaboration – you cannot celebrate the end result of changing the outputs of the process (more inspiration) without also examining how the change affects the process inputs and the process itself. Before a team enters into a collaborative agreement with another, all sides must examine how the new partnership would affect EVERY aspect of their programs, from initial input resources to mentorship involvement to the final process output.

For simplicity's sake (hopefully), I wish to describe a typical FIRST team as an "inspiration factory". The final output product manufactured by this team factory is inspired students. The primary "assembly equipment" which drives the process used to manufacture this product is the team's mentorship base. The raw materials that are fed into the "assembly equipment" are time, money, physical resources (tools, machine shop equipment, etc.), and impressionable students who have yet to be "processed" by the team (perhaps a bit of a scary image, but I think you all know what I am talking about).

Let's start with a typical veteran FIRST team "factory". It turns out high quality product every year, and the factory is running smoothly. In fact, it has received high marks and praise for its product from the manufacturing community; perhaps even the highest award granted by its peers. It has just the right amount of resource input to avoid "excessive inventory", and its "assembly equipment" is properly maintained and never overworked past its capacity limit, so it keeps churning out the inspiration at high efficiency levels.

Suddenly, the plant manager has a bright idea. He is a noted philanthropist and thus has no designs to achieve personal gain by pushing his superior product on customers at the expense of others within his industry; instead, he wishes to augment the productivity of inspiration at other factories in his region so that the combined overall productivity of the regional factories is doubled, tripled, or even quadrupled. How does he choose to achieve this objective? Let's examine two different pathways, one involving regional partners that are not nearly as productive, and another involving partners that are on par with the plant manager's factory….

*********************************************

Pathway 1 (Collaboration between an established factory and those that are either new or not as productive)

The plant manager eagerly pushes through an agreement with several other factories to merge their resources and build their product at the manager's facility. The other regional plant managers welcome this partnership with open arms, for they are either newcomers to this industry, or they have struggled with notable productivity and quality control issues as an independent manufacturer.

Upon merging the other factories' "raw material inventory" and "assembly equipment" with his own, the plant manager quickly discovers that he is in for more of a challenge than he originally expected. The other factories' assembly equipment, while demonstrating great promise, is far behind the efficiency and technology levels of the host plant's equipment. The host factory spent years learning how to fine tune their equipment based upon experience and feedback from industry professionals. The other factories have not had that luxury. In addition, the other factories, while bringing equally large stores of impressionable students over to the host factory, were short on the raw materials of money and physical resources. These factors all threatened to upset the delicate balance of input management the plant manager had established over the years. What was he to do? How was he to achieve his objective of increased inspirational output and still account for the excess inventory? He could make 1 of 2 choices…..

Decision 1

Not wanting to divert too much of his factory's raw materials to improving the relatively inefficient assembly equipment brought into the factory by his partners, the plant manager chooses instead to let that equipment sit relatively idle as he ramps up the production demands of his original assembly equipment, which he trusts. He feeds most of the combined raw materials of the partnership into his equipment, effectively absorbing the additional material inventory recently brought into the factory. His assembly equipment is a well-oiled machine and is flexible to changes in process and in material input levels, and for a time, it compensates beautifully. Production is way up, and from the outside, the factory appears to be succeeding in its objectives. The manager only activates the additional equipment in limited situations where the process demands weren't nearly as taxing. The other plant managers are thrilled by the accolades and awards they receive for being associated with this partnership, yet they see that their own assembly equipment and processes have not improved to anywhere near the same level as the host manager's. Because of these facts, they have simultaneously grown too dependent upon the current level of success and too afraid that they do not possess the same level of ability as the host manager's process to separate and return to their own factories.

Over time, as the original host factory equipment is continuously pushed to or past its capacity limit, this extra production demand slowly takes its toll. If the plant manager doesn't recognize the imminent danger this poses to the entire factory, a severe meltdown could eventually occur. The host assembly equipment will never again function within the factory walls – it will take a new factory and a fresh new approach to restore the broken equipment to the level of excellence it once demonstrated - and the remaining partner managers' equipment won't be developed enough to compensate for the loss.

Decision 2

The plant manager recognizes that his own assembly equipment is a precious resource that should not be overtaxed by the new partnership. In fact, he feels he should invest more time and money upgrading the new, raw assembly equipment and bring it up to the quality and productivity of his own. All of the partnership's raw materials would be more equally distributed among each piece of equipment, and all equipment would be run at nearly the same rate. While this path may not lead to the same immediate increase in output that would have been seen by following the path of Decision 1, and in fact, the productivity of his original equipment may actually decrease for a time, taking this direction would eventually lead to multiple pieces of high quality equipment running within his factory walls, all churning out the high-quality product his factory produced before the partnership took place. In fact, at this point, his partners may be so encouraged by their progress that they take their raw materials and equipment and go off on their own, perhaps even to propagate the same successful plan implemented by their host.

*************************************

Pathway 2 (Collaboration between two factories that share the same high-quality levels of productivity)

I don't have to go into nearly as much detail here. To achieve his goal of increased productivity throughout the industry, the plant manager contacts another plant manager from an equally successful factory. Both managers recognize that they do many, many things right, but each could stand to learn from the other and implement improvements to their process based upon the experiences of the other factory. The managers keep their factories distinct and separate, collaborating only to upgrade their assembly equipment and processes such that the quality and rate of production of their individual product is improved. Each manager gives proper credit to the other for their role in these shared improvements, and the two factories maintain lifelong connections so that they can continue to benefit from the partnership. They also agree to share their knowledge with other, less efficient factories that could use their assistance.


************************************************** ***************************************

As you pursue "Pathway 1" collaborative partnerships, please do not overtax and ultimately break your "assembly equipment", because without it, your raw materials will either be wasted or sit around as excess unused inventory, and they will never combine to form the finished product you seek. The key new point to all of this is that if you don't take care of your mentor resources - if you try to overwork them too hard and too long and stretch them too thin - if you do not supplement them with an infusion of equally capable mentors from your new collaborative partners or alter your internal process to see that your new, inexperienced mentors have room to grow along with your students, then you will most likely place an undue amount of strain on your most experienced mentors, and the quality of the inspirational output of your program could suffer.

Re: The Triplet Challenge
 

One factor of collaboration that may not have been taken into account by those encouraging it is its effects on the inspiration of those who are members of other teams. If nothing else, this thread has proved that there are many out there who believe collaboration provides an unfair advantage, whether or not it really does. This could easily lead to teams that were beaten by an alliance of collaborators feeling that they have been cheated. That can make it much more likely for these teams to drop out of FIRST.

This leads to the question: are the collaborating teams responsible for the damage their collaboration does to other teams they compete against, even if they didn't intend it? The answer to this is definitely yes. Whether it is intentional or not, teams must take responsibility for their effects on others. If a collaboration of two teams (which has actually only grown FIRST by one team, because the collaboration founder was already participating) drives three teams out of FIRST the next year because they are convinced it isn't fair, it is actually a net loss for the organization.

Finally, we must ask if collaborations have a moral (in the FIRST sense) right to exist if they do not cause a net gain in the number of teams. No! Collaborations that are non-profitable to the goals of the competition should not be allowed to remain collaborative. This will only hurt FIRST further.

Re: The Triplet Challenge
 

Speaking as a student on another team, who has competed both against and with the triplets, they have added to my FIRST experience, not detracted from it.

My team played against 1114 and 1503 in the finals at Waterloo. In no way were we intimidated, or annoyed that we were playing against two of the same robots. We knew that it would be near-impossible to beat them, but it did not decrease our level of drive. If anything, it increased our will to win, being up against two of the best robots in FIRST. Naturally, I was disappointed when we lost, but in no way was it any different from losing to three different robots.

Their actions on the field are echoed off the field. I got an opportunity to talk to both mentors and students on the triplets, and our pit at Greater Toronto was beside 1503. Every time I talked to one of their members, I was so impressed with the level of inspiration I saw from their team. It has inspired me to try and raise my team to that level. They are amongst the nicest teams out there.

I believe that the level of enthusiasm amongst the students and mentors on the teams, and the behavior they have towards other teams, goes further then what their robots look like. In my humble opinion, teams who cannot be graciously professional and accept that other teams have different ways of inspiring their students, and choose to drop out because of it, never truly understood the values of FIRST in the first place.

Re: The Triplet Challenge
 

This is the other side of the "bigger picture" that I tried to examine in my last post. If the collaboration is able to further inspire students even on other teams, then that is awsome! I have never personally been to a competition with the Triplets, and I honestly don't know how I would react if I did. If their approach is able to inspire more students than it discourages, then more power to it. I by default took the negative side of this argument in my last post (it seemed that most people posting in this thread that weren't Triplets themselves were against the Triplets), but there is also the positive.