Re: Any East Coast Collaborations?
 

lol, I would love to but our team has usually sided be against that...but let's not bring that thread back up please. I was just interested in seeing other twins or triplets and what similarities and differences they have. By far, the coolest ones are the 2006 NiagraFIRST triplets regardless of what your opinion on the matter of collaboration is.

btw.I think the black robot you may be referring to was a 968 practice chassis. I'll find the pic

Re: Any East Coast Collaborations?
 

Nah it definitely was it's own team... I'll try to find it somewhere I know I saw it in atl. I wanna say it was a 1900 something.

NVM it was 1538 the Holy Cows

Re: Any East Coast Collaborations?
 

A lot of teams on the West Coast have been inspired by 60/254/968 over the years. Others look to 330 for inspiration. Lots of teams this year either had the same idea as 121 or followed their example.

I guess they're following Dave Lavery's advice about "Steal from the best, and invent the rest!"

Re: Any East Coast Collaborations?
 

I was sort of disappointed by that a little. Although it was one of the best designs.

Re: Any East Coast Collaborations?
 

Engineering isn't always coming up with something new. It can just as easily be taking existing technology and putting it together in a new way (e.g. the Segway). Or adapting something to fit your needs. Or tweaking others' ideas to fit into your plan.

I'd say that's what many of those teams did. It also helped level the playing field by bringing the bottom up. (And, they had to reverse engineer it. Now that's a learning experience.)

Re: Any East Coast Collaborations?
 

Not really east coast... but don't forget 70 and 494

06 - http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/24184
07 - http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/27952
08 - http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/30517

Re: Any East Coast Collaborations?
 

True, I agree with you on that. However, there were some teams that really looked like total copies. But whatever, as long as they were built as well as the original or executed a different way I suppose it doesn't matter.

Oh Eric, btw, do you know if 121 worked with any other teams this year?

Re: Any East Coast Collaborations?
 

I think the large number of robots very similar to 121 was due to their robot video coming out in week 3(correct me if i'm wrong) which leaves a good deal of time for some teams to be inspired by the idea and incorporate some of the advantages into their own team's design.

I'm not saying I think it is bad that teams were inspired by them, as a matter of fact, I think it is great. If 121 didn't want to share their ideas they wouldn't have put their video out until week 6.

It is very helpful to some teams with less experience when a they get to see other robots before the build season is done so the can get inspirired by the ideas and use some of them if they were stuck otherwise.

Re: Any East Coast Collaborations?
 

I don't know. There are some members on the forum you could ask, though.

Re: Any East Coast Collaborations?
 

didn't exploding bacon team up with another team at some point? (do they count as east coast?)

Re: Any East Coast Collaborations?
 

Yes, 1902 and 1369 collaborated in 2007, as mentioned earlier in this thread.


Also, some teams came to a roller-claw design before 121 posted their video too... :rolleyes:

Re: Any East Coast Collaborations?
 

A vertical roller claw is fairly obvious. Turning around to roll the ball over the overpass in order to keep your arm at a single stage isn't so obvious, and I think that's what sets apart the 121 design.

Re: Any East Coast Collaborations?
 

There have been several teams who designed a single jointed arm that was able to hurdle. My own two teams 1345 and 108 had a single jointed arm who were able to hurdle without turning around and I am sure there were many other teams who were able to do the same.

Also, there are several teams who was inspired by team 254/968's previous robots. Team 1251 went west coast style this year and they were very successful.

Re: Any East Coast Collaborations?
 

Am I the only one who see's this as compleatly against the spirit of FIRST.

Isn't the point of the program to see different designs that do different things? For every team to let there KIDS engineer there own custom design.

Sure, making a similar design off of another team's claw or arm device makes sence. But to make exact copys, seams completly against the principals of FIRST to me!

Re: Any East Coast Collaborations?
 

There are those who are opposed to collaboration, yes.

Aaaaaactually, the point of the program is to inspire high school students to consider careers in science, math, and engineering. FIRST has historically not really worried about how teams go about this.

It didn't quite hit me until Cal Games 2006 that 254 and 968 are several hours apart. (The South Carolinian in me said "Oh, they're both in California, they can't be that far away from each other...") If any two teams can coordinate their robot design across 357 miles and produce Einstein-quality robots year after year, I'm willing to bet that they're doing pretty well at the whole inspiring thing. (I'll even better the odds, since half of that collaboration is in the Hall of Fame at least partially for their approach to collaboration.)

Besides, FIRST explicitly authorized collaboration at the start of the season.

Edit: And another thing--1369 received the Judges' Award at Palmetto in 2007 for their collaboration and its effect on the team: having two weeks to practice and fine-tune. (I've been in FRC for five years now, four as a mentor, and no team I've ever worked with has had two days to practice.) That sounds like an endorsement from the judges to me.