Re: On photographs and FVC competitions...
 

For the FIRST Vex Challenge Game, the rules are clear and explicit, and non-prohibition implies permission (i.e., if there's not a rule against it, it's allowed). For generic etiquette, non-prohibition does not always imply consent – I don't know of any law that prohibits me from seating myself at a stranger's table in a restaurant, but I'm likely to arouse anger and hostility if I do (in the U.S, that is.; in a third world country where I lived, this was acceptable). So for generic etiquette, culture DOES matter. Does picture taking & posting of publicly shown robots fall under the rules of the FIRST Vex Challenge or under generic etiquette? I can see that a good case could be made for both points of view on this (we sign a waiver, but media permission is only given to FIRST, not all spectators), but as you can imagine, I fall on the generic side. And in a generic sense, there are some things that are public that I still would not assume I can use as I like without permission. With regards to picture taking, I generally would not take a close-up of someone's face/child/house/robot without permission, and I would not post a picture of their face/child/house/robot without permission, even if they show these things in public.


While I certainly can't speak for every person in FLL, I have used the FLL forum extensively as a 4-year member and 2-year moderator (on the FLL Freak test, I had to check the box that says, "I read every post in every thread on the forum… daily"), so I have a pretty good "big picture" view of what has happened on the FLL forum in the past 3-4 years. For statistical data, in this year's forum (it's "swept clean" every year) under the section for posting links to web pages and photos, there are 10 teams who shared (and I know of 2 others who shared in other threads). In terms of the community at large, there are 186 teams from CA registered on the forum, ~400 CA FLL teams overall. If CA teams reflect the FLL community proportionally (8000 teams), then 12/3720 forum users share links, photos, and videos. I don't know how this compares to FRC, but "not common" is a reasonable description of 0.3%.

Why does this matter? In the '05-'06 season, FIRST estimated that 20,000 students participated in FRC and 60,000 participated in FLL. As FVC continues on its trajectory of exponential growth, many of those FLL people will make their way to FVC. Some changes can be accepted easily -- if people are told, "Please post your photos here – lots of us do it, it helps with scouting and benefits everyone," no problem. The problem comes when involuntary measures are thrust upon them: "Your team didn't post a picture, so I'll post one for you." I could see many taking offense at having a robot photo posted without permission, and this discussion could replicate itself multi-fold. The only ways I can see to alleviate that potential offense are 1) always ask permission or 2) help them understand that "this is the way some people do things around here, and it's accepted practice." If we are proactive in educating them about the range of acceptable behavior through threads like this, they are more likely to "see the light" and less likely to lash out with unfair and untrue accusations.

Culture doesn't have to be restrictive by saying "everyone behaves this way." It can actually give more freedom by expanding the range of acceptable practice.

Blake, I know that you're a great guy, even though we don't see eye to eye, and your viewpoints have given me food for thought.

Re: On photographs and FVC competitions...
 

My very strong opinion about why few teams posted pictures, etc. is that they would only post them if they wanted to brag (in a positive sense of the word). Teams know what their own robot looks like, and they have little incentive to do extra work to show it to a bunch of anonymous someones out on the Internet. This isn't an iron-clad rule but I suspect it is a significant factor.

Therefore, I suggest, few of the students take the time to post pictures of their own robots.

Also, at those ages (I am painting with a very broad brush here) while there is a strong tendency among many young students to want to show off, there is also a fairly strong tendency to look out for their own interests first. As a rule the notion of service before self is pretty elusive for many years as students grow and mature.

I have little if any research to back up these assertions, but I think that they are reasonable opinions to hold.

Blake
PS: Just in case anyone thinks I'm picking on younger students too much... Well - I am certainly guilty of non-uploading-ishness. I have about six sets of Vex bot pics I have needed to put up on the VexLabs site and instead I have been indulging my ego in this thread.... :)

Re: On photographs and FVC competitions...
 

Blake, you can't say that the only students to take the time to post pictures is the ones who want to brag.

In Atlanta, the scouts will not have a lot of time to carefully look at all the robots. In many cases, teams will print out advertisments of their robot and hand it out to other teams to ensure that they get selected.

Personally, I believe some teams will have the strategy of posting pics on CD and Vexlabs in order to be more known, and in order to guarentee themselves in the Atlanta Elims.

Re: On photographs and FVC competitions...
 

I think you missed the context -- the "bragging students" refers to young FLL students. FLL has an alliance round, but it is determined purely by random selection by powers that be -- the teams have no say, so there is no alliance selection.

There are a number of reasons why FLL students don't post much: they aren't as likely to have websites or be as skilled with digital photography & attachments as high schoolers, and the vast majority of visitors to the FLL forum are coaches, not students.

Re: On photographs and FVC competitions...
 

Posting pictures & other info for scouts to use is exactly the sort of bragging "in a positive sense of the word" that I was referring to. i.e. Here is our robot, it is a good one, look forward to allying with us...

Re: On photographs and FVC competitions...
 

how did no one know that there were triplets of simbotics robot before the championship? or are these identical designs from canada a coincidence?

Re: On photographs and FVC competitions...
 

Trick question--they weren't identical.

Granted, several robots had similar softball manipulators to Simbotics, which seemed to draw a little inspiration from FRC 173's robot from 2002. (Seeing as how that robot won the world championship--and that includes pulling out the rubber match on Einstein with 66 after 71 broke--I'd say it's worth emulating.) I'm blindly guessing (and don't have the lists to back this up) that the teams either competed or spectated at an event that FVC 1114 competed at, permitting them to try to fabricate a similar design in the time between competitions and the Championship.

I saw most of these robots up close and personal--the advantage of being a ref, I suppose--and I didn't see any absolute clones of 1114. However, I hope everyone took the opportunity to get a good look at them; there were definitely several tricks in their robot that any FVC team (or even just a Vex builder) could learn. (The first one that comes to mind is their use of 1-wide bar in a sort of curved web configuration to keep errant softballs out of their internals. I'll see if the photos I took of them came out.)

Re: On photographs and FVC competitions...
 

I guess yodameister liked the thumbs up!

Anyways...team 3075 worked with Simbotics, which might explain similarities between those teams' robots. We really felt bad about how the last match went with the communications problems we were having with our robot...3075 definitely should have been in the eliminations

Bad pics of most of the robots are in a link posted on another thead of mine.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=56814

Re: On photographs and FVC competitions...
 

the designs were identical, the fabrication was slightly different, they were all 6 wheels drive, 1:1 ratio to motors with 4" wheels. maipulators were double jointed arms with a basket. the intakes were powered by intake rollers and chain on 24 tooth sprockets on both the top and bottom to prevent jamming.

1114:
http://photos.project1726.org/albums...ormal_1114.jpg

3075
http://photos.project1726.org/albums...10010/3075.jpg

3652
http://photos.project1726.org/albums...ormal_3652.jpg

Re: On photographs and FVC competitions...
 

Team 1114 mentored 3075.

Team 3652 took some ideas from 1114 in terms of ball pickup. However, we were gear drive, not chain drive (though still 6 wheels), and the mechanisms had several major differences. Overall I think 1114's bot was best. Their arm and pickup was faster and more stable and they could hang.

Lets not forget all of the teams similar to team 40. I counted 4-5 tread pickup and basket dump.

Re: On photographs and FVC competitions...
 

This is true, there were also a lot of 40-esque designs. (S.H.I.R.T. and Vexy Things come to mind immediately.)

The more I think about it, however, the more I'm suspecting that some of the similarities could be a function of the constraints of the Vex Robotics Design System. How can you lift five or six softballs to high-goal height? You can elevate, you can use a jointed arm--but you'd have to run Vex chain in triplicate or quadruplicate, use tank tread, or use gears. Of the three, I'd use gears--but then your gear ratio choices are restricted to a few configurations of the same gears--and those are the same ratios that everybody has. If they're thinking the same way as you about the game, odds are that they're trying a similar setup.

With these limitations, the difference becomes the level of refinement of the designs and the strategy employed with them. And I like that.

Re: On photographs and FVC competitions...
 

It's funny, Vexy Things followed both paths. They had already settled on a basket using a scissors lift, but they were still pushing ideas around for how to structure the pickup. When they saw Team 40's design, they realized right away that they could use that. What they really liked was that the treads put the intake on the field side. Eventually they used 4 motors, a 3:1 gear ratio and 6 treads which allowed them to load balls faster.

BTW, I think that photos of all robots should be taken when they are inspected and posted after each tournament. From educational standpoint, there is much to be learned by seeing what others have done--and then, hopefully, improving upon it. Videos of the finals should be posted for the same reasons.

--Bill Wiley
Coach
Vexy Things (#3549)

Re: On photographs and FVC competitions...
 

Even funnier than that.... S.H.I.R.T. had a similar design to other teams during their State FVC tournament, but redesigned it from a lifting arm with tank treads, to an elevating basket. We almost totally swapped mechanism designs with team 2024 Mr. Roboto and we both ended up with better robots in the process.

During the redesign, we went through the same brainstorming we did initially by looking at scissor lifts, linear slide elevators, rotating/articulating arm, etc. But as Billfred stated, there are only a few basic methods for elevating several softballs from the ground to the top of a goal given the parts to work with. It's going to come down the the individual teams choices about the specific implementation method. We opted for methods that dealt with the balls in large numbers.
.... Pick up a load of balls from the floor
.... store a load of balls in the basket and intake treads
.... and dump a load of balls at once.
Doing all of this as fast as we can and as reliably as we can. The unpredictable issue for us was that 50% of our matches ended up with either human error ....... OR........field control problems and/or interference that left our robot dead on the field for more than half the match.