What would you do if build were longer?
 

Imagine that instead of six weeks, FIRST gave us two months. Or three months. Or a year.

Now, the actual amount of time given isn't what matters though, its what you would do with it.

Would you spent more time designing or prototyping? What about building? Or debugging code? Or more driver practice?

What would you do with more time to build?

(I'm not pro longer-build-season, I'm just wondering)

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

It would allow us to get more advanced machining done, do prototyping on a whole different level, and get some really good driver practice.

The big thing that the longer build season would do for us is we would be able to explore more of the "wilder" ideas that come up during brainstorming that we don't think wouldn't work, but sure enough we see a similar idea working on a robot during a competition.

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

I would sleep. (: Just kidding... no one sleeps during build season. I would probably put a little bit more time into every part of the process- they are all very important to a final outcome. I would say the thing that always gets pushed aside for too long is the code, so a longer build season would make sure that gets the attention that it deserves. More driver practice would also be great. And yeah... now that I think about it, sleeping sounds great. ;)

I like the fact that there are only six weeks, though. It forces us to be creative and to use our time wisely. It also mirrors "real-world" engineering projects where deadlines are very important.

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

I think there would be more students flunking out of school, mentor divorces, etc....

Having an impossible schedule is a benefit, it drives teams to work hard!

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

I would use 6 weeks to build the robot. Then after that my team would work on a time machine.

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

(for 2009's game)we would have probobly built our robot, then we would have made it better;) ......

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

More prototyping, testing, and drive practice.

Specifically this year, if we had 2 more weeks we'd be building a crab drive chassis instead of our 4 wheel chassis.

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

Everything on our bot would be machined (even more than it is now). But in all honesty, more driver practice and more performance tweaking. Also, I wouldn't be doing two months of hw right now :ahh:

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

If it were longer, I'd be redesigning, raiding ideas, etc...

However, there is a reason it's only 6 weeks. Woodie was once asked "Why do we only get 6 weeks?" at Kickoff. (This when they had a Q&A session instead of the game show...) His response? "We wanted to make it easier for the rookies." Or something to that effect. The reasoning given was: Rookie team gets the game and kit. They build a robot in 3 weeks. They see another robot that looks better, redesign, and spend the next 3 weeks rebuilding. Repeat the cycle until you run out of time. You cut it at 6 weeks, they aren't stuck in the cycle more than once.

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

A lot more prototyping, a lot more care put into manufacturing parts, probably sending off CAD files to get some parts milled, and more homework.

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

We would probably finish and drive our robot BEFORE it's shipped.

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

This. When I was waking up at 6:00 AM in order to get to work at 8:00 to let me get out in time to make 1618's meetings, then working until 8:00 or 9:00 with 2815, I was living on the edge. A couple more weeks of that and my work would've suffered for it. When a significant part of my work involves driving three-ton automobiles worth multiples of my annual salary, sometimes on public roads, you see the issue. ;)

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

+1

We haven't done this for the last two years, but I'm sure it'll happen again sometime.



We wont spend 48 hours in a row (just about) finishing it before shipping.

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

Though you could attempt to shorten the meetings. Like if you went from 6 to 8 each day. Of course, you'd fail because you can't spend only two hours at robots but it's just a thought. :p

I would hope our team would probably mostly make use of extra time programming, though I fear we might use it mostly for building.

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

I would probably use more of the time to do my homework. Procrastination is good for now though, I'll get caught up later.

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

Alright, alright, one thing I'd do: dress up the robot without the aid of gaffer's tape. (Thursday afternoon and Friday morning right there.)

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

I agree with Ellen on this one. The code often gets neglected, especially autonomous code (at least for our team). Then we're stuck at competition programming the autonomous we've wanted and it's very hard the way the pratice feild is setup.

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

Honestly, I think that if we were given more time, we would still be scrambling to get things done the night before ship. When I get an English paper, no matter when it is due, or what extensions I get, I will still do most of it the night before (what I'm supposed to be doing right now!). By that same standard, I think that if we were given 5 weeks, teams would still produce great robots like they do now, they would just have more long meetings.

However, maybe this is just me and my team...

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

You mean besides getting divorced??

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

For our team, our non-autonomous code is done within 4 weeks of ship. It's 'auton' that keeps us busy for the rest of the 4 weeks.

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

OK I am paraphrasing here so don't yell at me about accuracy......

Back in the olden days, when we were a rookie team (2000) and the only kick-off was in New Hampshire, they used to let people line up at a microphone and ask questions after the game was revealed.

After Dean and Woodie had fielded several questions, an annoyed mentor stepped to the microphone and said something like....."Why don't you give us more time? Why don't you give us 10 weeks instead of 6 weeks?"

Woodie stepped to the microphone and said with a smile....."Because we like you"!

Dean and Woodie understood even back then that extending build season would only make things worse.
I know you are just dreaming about possibiliites, but I thought you might like that story. :)

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

Maybe added some swerve drive to our robot? We only have 2 weeks to design the robot, an extra week would have allowed us swerve drive capabilities.

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

That would have been more scary than you already were...

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

We'd probably still end up finishing at the last minute...

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

We would have tested a swerve drive as well. We would also fully develop different design solutions to the game, rather than drilling a few holes in wood and testing with a drill motor, then improving on the design in Solid Works.

I do like the 6 week build. I couldn't imagine anything different.

-Keaton

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

Sign up for NURC in a week, and you'll have 6 weeks to do it too! We got an early start...that testing is gonna drag after a while....

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

Students grades would suffer, mentors would go insane. Honestly, people generally are very good at making the task fit the time given to do it. I can't imagine we would get much more done.

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

Yeah. Our mentors were just DONE for a while. I was DONE for a while. Everyone else was DONE for a while. Grades recovered and then we had regionals at Week 6. :)

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

I would try and get rid of that pesky 'teleoperated' code. Oh and that driver station has to go too. :]

RALFF FTW! :D

-q

p.s. for those who don't know, RALFF is the name of the autonomous scripting system used in '06, '08.

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

no, you're not the only one. I think there would be many teams who would be putting on nuts & bolts in the crate. I think a longer build season would lead to low- to mid-experience teams trying something that is just a bit beyond their skill set. A 6-week build season keeps teams honest in that while they do stretch their boundaries, they don't try for the supercomplicated devices (whatever those may be).

Regarding a shorter build season, that would be a problem for teams who don't have manufacturing capabilities in their workshops. We use an independent company for our machining, and while they are gracious enough to donate their time and materials, we understand that our parts fall to the bottom of their priority list. If build season were shorter, there simply wouldn't be enough time to design parts, get them manufactured, and assemble them even if meetings were longer. (Especially when snow days happen - that nearly killed us this year.)

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

This year we more or less had a 10 week build season. We built 2 robots, so we shipped one, and then spent another month or so finishing, coding and testing the practice robot. Let me tell you it is the last time we will ever work like that again.

6 weeks is a breaking point in my eyes for how much people can be around each other EVERY day, and for how long someone can work EVERY day.

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

This is the wrong time of the year to ask this question ... most of the mentors I know are relieved to be able to relax. Think about it:

New Year's --> Build Season --> Valentine's Day (somehow...) --> All nighter's --> Ship Day --> Work Catchup --> Regionals --> Championship --> Summer Kickoff & birthday celebration weekend --> Relaxing by the beach, pool, mountain cliff, etc

Why mess with perfection?

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

Good point Brandon, and I think that's one reason we didn't withhold anything this year--we knew that we had run out of robot building magic, whatever it is that kept us going to the meetings every day and putting off the rest of life.

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

If build season were longer, students would turn into zombies (think of how they are now, and multiply that by the newest rookie team number).

But honestly, I think with a longer build would come higher expectations. With more time for you to work on your robot, the more potential you have to fix the bugs, tweak what can be tweaked, and practice until perfected. The words "finished robot", will not be used during build season if you are doing it right. I'd expect teams to challenge themselves more but at the same time manage their time wisely and get more sleep and study.

edit:
[ For the record, not saying I believe it should or shouldn't be longer than it is now.]

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

I agree with this, 6.5 week build season during school term is stressful. Tack on 4 events plus Championship? Build season is already plenty long enough for me.

If we had more time I would make sure NOT to tell the mechanical people until the robot was in the programmers' hands.

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

Yeah, I know what you mean. Every year, almost every robot design we see in competition was suggested by someone on our team at the beginning of build season. The hard part is deciding which of the wild ideas you think will work best, because you really don't have the time to test more than one or two of them.

For example, in 2007 we referred to suction devices as "audible inhalers" until seeing how some of the best robots used them effectively.

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

It's calld Parkinson's Law:

"Work expands to fill the time available for its completion"

As others have said, I would probably be getting divorced ... and likely also be unemployed, homeless, and in prison ...

Many already consider me "certifiable". An additional 6.5 weeks of external insanity each year is all I can handle ...

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

Six weeks is just about right - especially since it's the same for all teams.

If we had more time, we would only use it to test and refine whatever general design approach we had committed to earlier in the process. We probably wouldn't start any major redesign in week 6, in the hope that we would be unstoppable by week 8 or 10 or whatever.

Most teams don't know if their basic design approach (i.e: hurdler vs. thrower in 2008 or shooter vs. dumper in 2009) was on the right or wrong track until after the competitions begin. Adding time to the build season won't change that.

If you really want to mess up grades, marriages, etc., then try this: 1) Set up a Michigan-style format with at least 2 district events all around the country. 2) Have all teams play at least one event. 3) Have a 3-4 week "rebuild" season, so everybody could go back to the drawing board for another round of build season stress while they try to adopt & improve on the most effective designs. 4) Play the second half of the competition season. 5)If you are a member of Team 33, don't change a thing - just continue with business as usual. :D

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

well, for starters I would've changed the gear ratio our belt system, fixed up our center pnuematic puncher, painted the entire robot purple, built a real cart, built a playing field, had a three day payload specialist tryout, had a week long drivers tryout, built 5 other dummy practice robots, marketed, let the sparkies work longer, not let the sparkies try and build a CIM, switched from chains to belts, gotten traction control, read the rules, ordered a mascot costume, and drank enough mountain dew to become a diabetic

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

With a longer build season, it would be interesting to see how many teams continued to panic, procrastinate, waste time, expend time that they can not account for, fail to become more organized and efficient, and give the programmers yet the same amount of time (very little) that they had in the 6 weeks build - and somehow justify that there just wasn't enough time.

If it were to go longer, I would think that sensible teams would work in shifts and have a reasonable closing time at night. (I believe I have read posts this season that address this within some teams now, born out of necessity.) Shifts would be something to look at regarding saving marriages, helping salvage/maintain grades, encouraging communication and sharing of knowledge, and developing better time management within the team.

It's an interesting topic/discussion. - :yikes: -

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

The project will always expand to fill up whatever time is available, I don't think making it longer would help anyone.

I've experienced other competitions with longer seasons, and see teams show up equally unprepared at events.

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

I would build coffins and an alibi.

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

If the build season were extended by another week or more, I would cut back my involvement with the team. I might even quit FRC outright. I'm already stretching the tolerance of my day job and family obligations as it is.

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

I would build a second chassis and super structure, taking time to make sure it was rock solid and make all the improvements learned after making the first one. Then I would take the mechanism from the first chassis and transfer that to the second one.

Oh wait....we did that this year! There was no limit to the build season this year. The constraint this year was that the robot you fielded had to be made of anything you put in the crate, any unassembled COTS you wanted and 40lbs of custom parts you brought to the regional. We went to a week 5 regional, so we met once or twice a week after ship to finish this new chassis. The extra time was very low stress because we knew exactly what we were building and how well it would work.

Although I enjoyed the extra time allowed us to have a more reliable robot, I would rather just have the 6 weeks. It takes a bit more experience with the competition and the design process, but there are some amazing creations built in 6 weeks, I don't think we need any longer than that.

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

I think our robot did pretty well for build season. My only wish was having more time for programming atleast at the Regional or Atlanta to get our code working better in auto period. Since we had a camera that was suppose to track and then score in that period. In DC it worked well, and scored a few times after playing with callibrations. Atlanta, it never got well into tracking mode because of difference in lighting and the stadium seat colors. So, not quite an extension to build season, unless i were to somehow get the lighting of those to events into our lab...

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

I think we would finish the robot on time. Mabye...

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

If it they just told us it was X days longer, we'd probably go slower or do the exact same thing. If, two days before shipping, they announced it was extended another 6 weeks I think we'd jump around crying out of happiness of actually having time to test and improve(and paint more things purple)

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

I don't believe it would matter. The teams that are done on time would still be done. The teams that flounder would still flounder. The kids keeping up with school work would still keep up. The others............you get the point.
The lunacy would expand to fill the available time and mentors would burn out.
Just my $.02.

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

I know the build season is only 6 weeks long but you can "stretch" it a little.

Summer and fall projects are great. You can design chassis, code, electrical layouts, manufacturing processes, etc. that might be applicable to next years game. Of course you would just be guessing, but if you have an arsenal of ideas that you have already tested it can speed up the process. (On a side note make sure you DON'T use it on your competition robot. If you are designing a chassis make it 1"X1" to big based off of the previous years game so you aren't tempted and no one can charge you for it.) Once again, these would just be prototypes, weapons in your brainstorming arsenal if you will. They are also great ways to keep your team involved in the off season.

With the 40 lbs weight that each team could bring into each competition, you could continue to improve your robot. That doesn't mean that a robot will change drastically, but we all saw shooters become dumpers this year to great effect.

Six weeks is a great time length. As others have said, it forces your team to push the envelope of design. It would be nice to sleep a little though...

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

Bingo...

Think of FTC? How many teams show up to their first FTC event unprepared? Most of them have a 3 or 4 month build season and they show up to their first competition still adding mechanisms, tweaking code, etc, etc... Give people more time and they'll procrastinate even more than they do now.

Re: What would you do if build were longer?
 

Let me get this straight;

I LIKE BUILD SEASON AS IT IS.

If it were longer, I'd go insane. I was just wondering what people would do.
This is kinda my way of seeing what people value most during build. Some people prefer to spend more time building, while others think its all in prototyping. And in another world, kids would put their emphasis on code.

So this isn't a petition for longer build, guys and gals.