Re: 2006 Season - The Negative
 

We did this at the Championship. We parked our robot next to the practice fields in the pits that no one was using and took the opportunity to figure out why our camera couldn't see the light. It wound up being that the camera was so out of focus that it got confused really easily. Without this "ambush testing", we never would have had the opportunity to diagnose this problem.

Re: 2006 Season - The Negative
 

As I remember from the Kickoff video, every member of the Game Design Committee was introduced. I certainly don't remember all of the members, but I do recall the following:

--Dave Lavery--NASA official whose job title does not include working for FIRST. I conclude that at least some of his work with FIRST takes place in his spare time. He also mentors a FIRST team. He also has a family, and families need a lot of time.

--Dean Kamen--Founder of FIRST, but he also owns at least two or three companies which need his constant attention, plus he seems to be getting more speaking engagements each year. I don't know when he has time to invent stuff any more.

--Jason Morella--Paid employee of FIRST. Even so, he must spend huge amounts of time working with Regional planning and all sorts of administrative stuff. And wasn't there something about him starting a family, too?

My point is that no one on the GDC can, in fact, work on the game design every day for 7 months, because they all have other work that necessarily has higher priority. It's probably better that way, because working on the game every day for 7 months would probably make the designers insane, and then we'd really hate the game! ;)

Re: 2006 Season - The Negative
 

Another GDC member is Benji Ambrogi, all-purpose genius at Deka R&D. I think Dean keeps him pretty busy with projects that produce (or may someday produce) income for his company. ;)

Re: 2006 Season - The Negative
 

Curses! Logic has long been my nemesis. KarenH makes a good point. I should perhaps rephrase to say that it would take them every bit of 7 months to design a game.
I am convinced that two GDCs is not a feasible solution, however.
There's not enough FIRST leadership to go around, for one thing. And you run the risk of wildly differing philosophies if there's not enough communication between the GDCs. Look at BEST if you want an idea of how multiple GDCs could end up. Also, a GDC in the middle of a design is going to have troubles folding in all the lessons learned by the previous GDC. Also, also, kits technology will end up delayed by a year, atleast. Can't design a game without knowing what's in the kit. The cons tend to go on and on. The main pro is more time to design and test a game. This all presumes that the current GDC doesn't have time to build and test a field and that's why teams complain about the field. I'm still not convinced this is the case.

Re: 2006 Season - The Negative
 

I thought about this post all day today because I wanted to have a good answer... so here I go.

When I think of FIRST I think of the FIRST Robotics Competition. Sure, there is Lego League and Vex but I don't participate in those. I'm not involved in those for several reasons but most importantly I believe that FIRST has to be a part of high school to be successfull. I think of Vex and Lego League as a warm up for kids. Hit them early so when they think of FIRST they think of FUN! In FRC our goal is to channel kids into engineering and science. It's obvious to me that has to happen just before the kids go to college. So they can maybe choose a school that specializes in engineering or they can begin an engineering curriculum as a college freshman.

My high above interpretation of the organization is FIRST in itself is about changing culture. FIRST's mission is to show that science and technology can be fun and can be a rewarding career option. FRC accomplishes this goal through an annual robotics competition.

Now to answer the question...

When you remove the game and the robots from FRC what are you left with? A cool group of people no doubt. But we can't inspire unless we demonstrate.

As a mentor I need the game to demonstrate the engineering process by creating a robot; from requirements, to design, to manufacturing, to test. The inspiration comes from seeing a design from idea to playing field. To a high schooler being able to demonstrate a real life application for math and physics is a very powerful thing. Dean likes to call the robot and competition the vehicle for getting kids into science and technology.

I always like to say that the students realize science and technology can be fun during the build season. They should be inspired by their mentors. But the regionals- they're the deal closers. The regionals explode with excitement and fun all because the students were inspired to create a robot by following the engineering process. It's the finale of a strenuous 6 weeks and allows them to shine.

To tie this philosophy into my issues with FIRST... FIRST is making my job harder because of all the problems with the vehicle. If the vehicle is our way of getting students into science and engineering than why shouldn't it be FRC's top priority?

Re: 2006 Season - The Negative
 

the reasoning for me saying that programmers should drive(if they can, i can) is because if there is a new feature that may make driving easier they can go ahead and program the new function, also they will get more testing total they could test autonomous and move right into human controlled.

Re: 2006 Season - The Negative
 

Last time I checked, the GDC doesn't get paid by FIRST either. They are just as much volunteers as any regional planning comittee. So using your previous argument, your either saying that the game is not designed by FIRST, as you said regionals are not run by FIRST, but rather volunteers.


FIRST has 3 GDC's actually. One for FLL, one for FVC, and one for FRC. Creating multiple GDC's for one game would probably only lead to more delays and controversy as you have to chose 1 game over another, rather than speeding anything up. Each GDC would have the same problems as the single FRC does now, but your also adding one more stage of chosign between multiple games to the design phase.

Re: 2006 Season - The Negative
 

The same type of comments can be said about any part of the robot. Someone who worked on the drivetrain is going to understand any malfunctions in the drivetrain, and will know how to adapt to them on the field. Same can be said for the manipulator and its operator. Your role on the team should not effect your chances at making the drive team.
116's driveteam the last 3 years:
2006:
Base Driver-Shooter
Manipulator Operator-Shooter
Result-AC5, QF in Peachtree, missed eliminations at VCU

2005:
Base Driver-Arm
Manipulator Operator-Programming
Result-Did not make eliminations at either event

2004 (VCU):
Base Driver-Drivetrain
Manipulator Operator-Animation
Result-SF

2004(Chesepeake):
Base Driver-Animation
Manipulator Operator-Arm
Result-Did not make Eliminations

As shown, your role on the team has little effect on your ability to drive the robot effectively.

Re: 2006 Season - The Negative
 

Lil' Lave,
The theory behind multiple GDCs is that you put them on a 2 year timeframe and stagger the releases. GDCa designs games for odd years, GDCb designs games for even years. Plusses are more time to fine-tune and test games, fields, less rush, and that's about it that I can see. Cons in my opinion are that you'll have a 2 year delay on upgrades to the kit, learning from mistakes, etc. You risk the GDCs getting out of touch and having wildly different games from year to year. Lots more work, and a lot of temptation to over-think everything involved.

My best argument for the status-quo follows the Open Source Software philosophy. Any GDC will be made up of a finite and limited set of individuals, say 20. They can do only so much, really. When they release the game to the teams, there are suddenly 1000 teams of atleast 4 members each looking at the rules. Which in 6 weeks adds up to the amount of work the entire GDC could do in 2 years. So there's a lot to be said for getting the rules and game as right as they can in 7-8 months and then letting teams nitpick and lawyer all the problems out of it.

I don't know that an extra 12 months of GDC work gains you all that much. If the current system can't allow for testing a full scale field with robots, I fail to see how 12 more months of poking at a game design will really help things. Mostly since I suspect physical testing is a limitation imposed by the design process, secrecy needs, and budgetary concerns more than any particular time crunch. I base this opinion mostly on a very rough comparison between FIRST and BEST, where game designs are often finished in the nick of time, and the design responsibility rotates between hubs.

Re: 2006 Season - The Negative
 

I was simply trying to filter out what FIRST staff does from what volunteer do. You do have more insight into whether the GDC is paid than I. I assumed they were volunteers. The difference between a volunteer on the GDC and at a regional is that a volunteer on the GDC has profoundly more impact. If they make an error it gets duplicated.

For what it's worth I am in Six Sigma training this week causing my process and customer awareness to go through the roof.

What also makes the GDC volunteers different then most volunteers is their customer. The GDC's customer is FIRST. FIRST's customer is the teams. The regional's customers are the teams.

Therefore, if teams are not happy with the game than it is FIRST's fault, not the GDC. Since the teams are FIRST's customer.

Re: 2006 Season - The Negative
 

Has anyone noticed that the negative thread is over THREE TIMES the size of the positive thread? It's not even on the first page of the general forum anymore!
Is FIRST really doing that bad of a job?

Re: 2006 Season - The Negative
 

Yes but with robotics the whole process is completely different and usually you usually rely on adaptablitity rather than rigidity. You have to expect the unexpected. You have to figure into the fact that the field at one place may be slightly different from what you expected. Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing randomized targets placed on the field next year. It would make the competition much more realistic. Muahahhahhah... Muahahhahah... Muahahhahhahahah... Muahhahahhah....

Re: 2006 Season - The Negative
 

No. But as my uncle said - opinions are like armpits. Unfortunately, most of them stink. It's not easy to appreciate all the positive but it is very easy to find the faults in everything. While some of the arguements in this thread are very valid, I do see a lot of unnecessary bickering. All I can say is if you pose a problem, propse a solution along with it.

Re: 2006 Season - The Negative
 

I'd like to use the term discussion. This thread is not about negatives, it's about opportunities :D

Re: 2006 Season - The Negative
 

Not if you have two committees which alternate years thereby giving them much more time to work out the wrinkles and possibly to do more testing.

Re: 2006 Season - The Negative
 

Other terms in the engineering process you frequently run across are design review, peer review, and post mortem review. Maybe the first two would be difficult with the need for secrecy about the game but certainly the post mortem is not. (Actually, this is sort of what we're having now except we're playing shake the box and trying to guess what's rattling inside.) Have the GDC publish their documents with rationale about why things were done the way they were so other can learn and reasonably critique the design so the GDC learns going forward, too.

Re: 2006 Season - The Negative
 

I know that the commity of first puts alot of time into planing the game but i think they could come up with a game where the score is a little bit closer and not so many blow outs.

Re: 2006 Season - The Negative
 

Are we of the opinion that the GDC is not reviewing how things went this year and that they're blindly forging ahead with no concern for any issues there have been? I think we can give them a little more credit than this. Also, a post mortem review is tradtionally conducted by the engineers themselves, as they best understand the design goals, process, etc. I don't think Intel is likely to let customers in on the design process of the Pentium 4 so the marketplace can tell them what they did wrong. Customer surveys and polls, certainly, but they take that data and figure for themselves what went wrong. I don't think many in the FIRST community are experienced enough in designing games to comment on the process. We're simply consumers commenting on the quality of the final product.

Re: 2006 Season - The Negative
 

Well, the portion of this thread I was replying to concerned the design of field elements, the center goal mechanism in particular. A comment was made how there were a huge number of constraints. All I'm saying is if you can't simply tell people they don't understand without supplying all the design parameters.

This isn't Intel. There are no competitors or trade secrets to protect. I'm sure there is more than enough engineering talent mentoring FIRST teams that they probably would have something positive to contribute to a post mortem analysis. Also, for various design reviews, it's useful to bring in outside talent as they have fresh eyes and don't have preconceived ideas.

Re: Lessons Learned: The Negative(2006)
 

Quote:
Originally Posted by deficite
Ah, I remember our first Q match during St. Louis regional. During the drivers' meeting they announced that an update needs to be made to people's code (if I remember right, one of the variables needed a keyword added to it). The drivers we had sent up there didn't have any coding experience so they just figured our programmer had fixed it already. Well, during that Q match, our robot's autonomous went crazy and we had no control of the robot after the autonomous period. That was the only loss we had at St. Louis. The announcement was made public after St. Louis was over.
A few 2 cents

I disagree the drivers DO NOT have to be the programers. The driver team has to pay attention at the drivers meetings. It someone makes anouncement of a change to code or rules the drive team has to write it down and bring it back to the pits so programmers can put the change into the robot. If the drive team is not sure if they have correct info written down the drive team should ask for more info before they leave the drive team meeting.

GDC does a great job. Think about it in the real world when a new product is design, is the first design the last and final design? I think not. You hope that all possabilities of what might happen are thought of but it does not always work that way. With the few people that do work on the game design then build and test the new game each year I think they do a GREAT job. I have been in Manchester the weekend before the ship date for robots. It is crazy people building the electronics, the field componets (goals, ramps, ect) the cases and racks or what ever they use to to transport the fields to their events. It is not to long after the teams ship their robot that the fields have to be shipped to their first events.