[BB]: Regional Variations & Bagging It
 

Bill's Blog has details on compressed Regionals (Pittsburgh & Sacramento)
Bagging the robot for non-Michagan events, etc.
http://frcdirector.blogspot.com/2009...days-post.html

Re: [BB]: Regional Variations & Bagging It
 

"Oregon, Bayou, Florida, Pittsburgh, WPI, Utah, Connecticut, Colorado, Las Vegas, Sacramento, North Carolina, Michigan State Championship and possibly a few others, will all explore methods of providing the same high-energy, high-quality experience of a Traditional FRC Regional Event without the same expense."

Above is From Bill's Blog, could this mean that the above listed events will (should) have a cheaper registration fee?

Re: [BB]: Regional Variations & Bagging It
 

It might mean more in terms of how the events are set up. They may buy/rent fewer things at these regionals as other regionals have done recently.

IE: smaller practice field, no practice field, no sponsor banners, less extra lighting/A/V equipment?

Sounds interesting though.

What I'm wondering is how it works if a team is attending one of the "bagged" regionals and then is attending another regional after that. Do they ship it in a crate right after the first "bagged" event or do they ship it in the bag?

Re: [BB]: Regional Variations & Bagging It
 

"Teams going from one of the “Bag and Tag” events to another Regional Event or to the FIRST Championship will take their robots home to crate them for FEDEx pickup and shipment to the next event." Bill's Blog


If it is a back to back event then this could be interesting.

Re: [BB]: Regional Variations & Bagging It
 

Did you guys not see the great happy paragraph in there? 10 qualification matches! All of your favorite seeding nightmares should at the very least happen way less often. We all get more play time, and my experience leads me to think more play time makes everything better. Running 9 qualification matches at Minnesota was really fun and more or less made the Top 8 very accurate.

If this extends to the Championship, perhaps the occasional good-but-not-the-best "floated robots" will be less and less common.

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I hope there aren't any US teams interested in going to Canada.

My understanding is that these events won't be any cheaper for you to attend-they will just feature non-Sargent AV, less volunteer perks, etc, etc. I sure hope FIRST has some sort of minimum standard they intend to enforce for quality.

Re: [BB]: Regional Variations & Bagging It
 

I can't speak for the other regionals, but I bet the WPI Regional is probably going to be just as good, if not better, in production quality than not only some of the "cheaper" Regionals, but also some of the "traditional" Regionals, yet for a fraction of the expense. They've already been doing it for years, with BattleCry@WPI.





WPI has a lot of resources internally on our campus, like Lights and Lens or two fully stocked machine shops with 2 manual mills, 2 manual lathes, and 12 CNC machines within 500 yards of the competition venue or our own campus police, etc.

Actually, the more I think about it, the idea behind to moving a large number of Regionals from convention centers and sports arenas to college sports arenas makes a ton of sense.

Convention centers and sports stadiums don't really have anything to gain from having lots of motivated high school students in attendance, other than the earning money from the rent part. But colleges have a lot to gain from having lots of motivated high school college students on their campus. Colleges would most likely be a lot more motivated to get the expenses down while getting more fun and excitement out of the event, as this excitement would likely correlate well with the student's perception of the school.

Nearly everyone in FRC needs to go to college before they'll become an engineer, scientist, or entrepreneur aspiring to change the world. Lots of colleges offer existing FIRST scholarships, but a large number remain unclaimed. By hosting a regional, this gives students a chance to really get to know a college, and I'd surmise would make them more motivated to apply for potential scholarships offered by the school hosting the regional.

Win for students, win for colleges, win for FIRST.

This isn't really anything new. FIRST has been marketing it as something new and great and exciting, but the reality is that smaller events with 30-40 teams in attendance have been offering 10-13 qualification matches for many years now. I distinctly remember the 2005 UTC New England regional having about 35 teams, with each team competing in 12 qualification matches.

The number of matches is (and always has been) inversely related to the number of teams in attendance.

Shrink the number of teams, increase number of matches.

Re: [BB]: Regional Variations & Bagging It
 

"Several Regional Events will be piloting a variety of cost effective measures this year. Oregon... will all explore methods of providing the same high-energy, high-quality experience of a Traditional FRC Regional Event without the same expense. Our hope is to find ways to continue to hold costs down in the future by using locally procured and implemented resources."

Do we get a reduced fee or just less for what we are paying for?

For the record Oregon has never had a more than a few elements that teams have brought to practice (no Practice field for at least the past 6 years). We haven't had sponsor banners for at least one year and maybe longer (logos are projected between matches on the screen). So I really wonder how much less we are going to get this year...

I'd really like to see the plan for Crate Regional -> Bag & Tag Regional -> Championship

Re: [BB]: Regional Variations & Bagging It
 

I guess my thoughts are if the savings are not passd onto teams, then why make the cahnges and who is reaping the benifits?

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FIRST isn't having to float the regionals that can't come up with enough cash on their own. Which is why it's highly unlikely anyone going to those events would be paying less than normal.

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Does anyone know if teams attending the "compressed competition format" events (Pittsburgh and Sacramento) will be given "out of bag" time prior to the event, similar to what MI teams received last year? We were seriously considering attending Pittsburgh, but the thought of not having a practice day prior to our first event of the season makes me a bit trepidatious. Not knowing these important details with registration less than 48 hours away is problematic.

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Seconded.

Agreed.

"Practice matches will be run during load-in at Sacramento and Pittsburgh (probably on the practice field) and qualifying matches will begin sometime Friday morning."

Pittsburgh does not have a practice field (and I don't know where they'd put one - loading dock?). They have typically provided a very small practice area.

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Qualifying rounds on Thursday afternoon at Week 1 events will be very interesting, to say the least.

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When many speak of the 10 rounds of qualifiers being the solution to our problems of getting the best teams on the field for the finals... we need to ponder this...

How many regionals have you been to that have all of the rookie and younger teams ready to start playing at 12:00 on Thursday?
I have NEVER been to a regional where that was the case...

So you go into your qualifier on Thursday and your partners have not been inspected... or can't pass inspection.... many teams need all of Thursday to get ready....it is a god send to many of them....

It also gives those of us that are ready plenty of time to help them get ready.
Now we are all playing.... noon....

If the game is anything like last year.. you will see even more qualification situations.... last year if one team did not make it on the field.... it was a free for all on that empty trailer....

If that happens again Thursday will NOT represent BETTER qualifications...
It will be much worse...

I would rather have 7 good qualifying rounds than 10 with 3 on Thursday...with only half of the robots showing up...

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I disagree. Thursday matches will lead to a more representative top 8. Not because they are on Thursday but in simply increases the sample size.

In addition to the increased sample size, the good team are more likely to pass inspection and won't be as effected by the lack of practice time (due to practice robots). The 'bad' teams are the ones more likely to miss matches or have mechanical/electrical issues.

It is true that more robots missing will lead to more variability. But a missing robot will effect the good and bad teams equally (assuming the match schedule is random). I think three more matches clearly outweighs this potential variability.

I'm all for more matches!

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I am on the planning committee for LVR and there will not be a reduction in entry fees. I can assure you that teams will not notice any reduction in quality services resulting from our cost cutting efforts. Savings will come from using the awesome operators of the arena on the UNLV campus instead of the FIRST provided Show Ready operators. Our "in house" group has incredible experience putting on events much bigger than regionals and we expect our 6th year to be even better than our first 5! Those of you who have shared in the "Vegas" experience and return will not be disappointed, newcomers will be blown away!

Cory is right...there will be a few dollars saved on what we spend on the volunteers but the money saved is mostly saved by FIRST since our local contributions to the cost of the event doesn't cover the full costs of the regional and they will pick up the shortage as in the past (as they do across the country). There will be less shortage with expected savings, hence [i]FIRST[i] spends less...

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That definitely sounds like an awesome experience. Much like I've always heard Boston and the WPI offseason are. I look forward to seeing more about this :D

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Best seen in person, right?:D

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Perhaps we need a shift in our mindset. Thursday is no longer the "last day of build" - it's the first day of competition. Build has to be done on bag/ship day. Any practice time is only for tweaking, not major builds. Michigan teams had to face that reality last year - many did not realize it and missed a significant portion of their 12 matches in their first district event.

And it's not just rookie or young teams that have to change their thinking. I know of very veteran teams who built or rebuilt major components of the robot on Thursday in the past.

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Agreed. Teams will have to shift their mindset a day or two durring build season. We have left last minute things for Thursday morning, and had a good practice day, but some teams look at Thursday as the last day of build as you said. Those things will have to be done before ship. It's part of the challenge!

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This comes up just about every year, and while it's been said just about every year, I'll reiterate it again to save from having to search...

Very little of the registration cost actually goes to the costs of the actual regional event you are attending. The vast majority of it goes to things such as:

• Payroll @ FIRST HQ
• Travel Expenses for FIRST staff
• Kit of Parts items
• Facility costs(utilities, etc) for FIRST HQ
• etc, etc...

As others have alluded to here, essentially what FIRST does is guarantee that the various bills for the regional (venue, A/V, drayage, etc) get paid, but it is the responsibility of the regional committee to obtain funding to cover as much of this as possible. In the event that the committee comes up short, FIRST covers the difference.

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Totally agree. You must be ready to play on friday. Your team mates must atleast move. Rookies ask for help and veterans seek them out. It is in your best interest. Stage a rookie event like Kettering did. The team we helped last year had their base moving before we did.

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The "good" teams will also have fewer uninterrupted stretches of time to help the "bad" teams so the "bad" teams can actually get out on the field and play. Because that's what it's all about, right - making sure everyone has a great competition experience?

You can tell vets and rookies to "make sure you're ready to go before you arrive" until your gums bleed, but some teams are still going to slip through the cracks. Also, some teams who *think* they are ready when they ship their bot will put the bot on the playing field and inevitably find out that they are not ("oh....we are [heaven willing] playing on carpet....we tested driving on tile floor....."). So add them to the list of those who are at increased risk of not getting a chance to play under the "compressed" schedule.

As the "ready to go" teams salivate over the prospect of the 10 qualifying matches, don't forget about those who, by way of an oversight due to inexperience or pure bad luck, still need a little help from their friends to get on the field and compete.

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I can't agree much more with this statement than I currently do. There's a reason a number of my favorite regionals are held on college campuses, and why they're so good because of it.

I agree. I'm all for more matches for a number of reasons, but not at the cost of Thursday. Heck, I can't even count how many VETERAN teams take until 2-3pm to get their robots inspected. Between uncrating, setting up pit spaces, attaching/modifying fix-it window components (or whatever the equivalent system is this year), calibrating cameras, fixing inspection violations (however minor they may be), scouting, and helping out other teams, very few teams I know are ready by noon on Thursday. And shrinking that time they have on Thursday is only gonig to make it more difficult for them to help the teams that really are struggling.

If the top 8 is all you care about, sure. It will be a more representative top 8 of how all the robots performed between Thursday at noon and Saturday at noon. It still won't be very representative of machines that improved as they were completed/fixed during the event, and it still won't be representative of teams' alliance partners missing matches because they haven't passed inspection.

But that's hardly the only point of a FIRST event. I'd rather play 7 matches and have a slightly worse top 8 than play 10 without getting half the robots on the field for their first match or two.

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Having inspected before...

What's this about finishing inspections on Thursday? Teams actually do that?

Of the L.A. teams in the first three matches, about half a dozen had to finish inspection on Friday morning. For most of them, it was a simple matter that had held them up (say, no BOM). After they finished, another 3-4 teams still needed the BOM or some other matter cleared up--and this is after Thursday's 12 hours of work/inspection.

Starting competition matches on Thursday is going to hurt, especially because teams will say, "We've got Thursday to finish" again. It'll take an event or so for them to realize, "$%^, we DON'T have Thursday, we need to finish on Ship Day!" And for many teams, their year will be over already by the time they realize this. Their experience is going to stink for a bit. It'll take a year or two to get everyone going to the point where this will actually work the way it's intended to.

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Bill's Blog states that shipping will not be provided to bagged regionals. It also states that robots will be taken home from bagged regionals, and then shipped by UPS to your next regional. If you are attending two consecutive bagged regionals (as we might), these two statements conflict. Will you take your own bagged bot from one bagged regional to the next, or will bots that have already been to a bagged regional be an exception and get shipped to the next? We will write to FIRST and ask, but maybe someone has already looked into this.

Re: [BB]: Regional Variations & Bagging It
 

If you only attend "Bagged" districts or Regional events then you cart your robot everywhere.
There will be no shippers (to or from) present at Bagged events.

Bill's wording is a little misleading, but addresses the mixing of Bagged & non-Bagged events.
You have to ship to non-Bagged Regionals and Championship. (Although in a sense it's still kind of a bagged process, because you must crate it intact inside it's bag.)


I wonder if I can get some of those bags for my leaves this fall? It'd scare the bejeezus out of our leaf pickup guys.

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In addition, if you look at FIRST's financials, the registration fees in total are far lower then the total operating expenses. It is more then likely that some major sponsors are feeling the economic hurt and have had to reduce thier generous donations this year.

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Yeah, I've been thinking about those scenarios as well. We were one of the fortunate veterans week 1 last year in DC. On Thurs the only work we had to do was camera calibration which one of our engineers was handling pretty well. Mind you we had a VERY simple robot, no fix-it-window add ons ... only a DS upgrade to do besides getting a camera dialed in. Even being in great shape otherwise, we spent all of Thursday...along with some other vets ... getting a few rookies past inspection ... two of which finally passed, but never ran one practice match. I'm trying to picture in my mind what that day would have looked like starting Q matches at noon.

I LOVE 10+ matches for all, let's hope we can get those struggling teams more functional prior to showing up at their first event.

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Instead of starting at noon on Thursday, why not run until 8 pm on Friday as well?

It would require longer hours for the volunteers, but I don't think there is a single team that would rather cut half of practice thursday vs staying later on Friday.

There might be other considerations like OT for venue staff. Maybe FIRST has looked into it and deemed it undo able. It would be nice if it was possible though.

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In 2009 on Thursday at the Dallas and Houston regional events students of team 148 were kept busy from the time doors opened until the time doors closed assisting teams in getting their robots running. (Primarily the LARGE number of Texas rookie teams).

Many of these teams would not have been ready for their first match Friday morning, if it was not for this assistance.

If Thursday practice is eliminated, I guess we're expected to take that show "on the road" during build season?

Some people refer to Thursday as: "Practice Day"
Some people refer to Thursday as: "Pit Day"...

-John

Re: [BB]: Regional Variations & Bagging It
 

In regards to my previous post, I didn't say that qualification matches on Thursday was a good thing. I simply responded to a claim that matches on Thursday will lead to an even more unrepresentative top 8. I disagreed with that claim.

As it has been stated over and over in this thread, it will decrease the time the vets can spend helping with the rookies. This is a downside.

One positive (atleast in my mind), is that teams won't be able to rebuild their entire robot on Thursday. I've never been a fan of teams spending 6 weeks designing and building their robot, then see how the game is played and rebuild their entire robot to a sucessful design. I understand it is part of the engineering process (continous improvement) but it cheapens and downplays the 6 week build season too much, in my opinion.

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You most definitely have a great point here. How often will it happen that a lot of teams will miss their first few qualification matches? It already happens a lot nowadays and the teams who are ready for their matches get screwed over. This already happens at NJ all the time (Team X is not ready for its first 2 quali matches. Team X's alliance partners are. The opponent alliance is two bots down also due to not being ready. 10 matches each? Doesn't seem like it now, does it.)

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I feel like this is the exact spirit of engineering. If what you make is not optimal you do whatever you can to make it work right. If you have the ingenuity/know how to completely rework your design in 12 hours, more power to you.

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I feel the most inspired when a team is able to do this or assemble their entire machine on the day of competition (of course there has to be a design reason for this).

Take a look at what 973 did this year at LA and you'll be amazed by how inspired you can be by an empty frame compared to a beast of a machine within hours.

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Does this bagging policy with no shipping exclude teams from outside a region shipping the robot TO that regional and out of it? Bagging is fine for the local people but it doesnt work at all for robots shipped in from distance.

It would be nice to know this before I register for something tomorrow

Re: [BB]: Regional Variations & Bagging It
 

Last year was our first year as a rookie team (lower team number because we had some experienced members but really started at square one last year) and I can tell you when we left on Thursday, our robot wasn't working. If it wasn't for the gracious help from Checkmate, Mayhem and Rhode Warriors (I think I've got that list right!), we would have been very, very sad rookies.

When do you think they'll list the schedule?

Trying to Help

Re: [BB]: Regional Variations & Bagging It
 

I'm curious as to how a regional was deemed a "Bag & Tag" versus a "Shipped" regional. Anybody from a regional planning committee have any insight?

I ask mainly because when I saw Bill's post that more events would become B&T events, I assumed Boilermaker would be on the list. The average distance travelled to last year's BMR was 100 miles, with the max being something like 275.

So, anybody got any insight?

Re: [BB]: Regional Variations & Bagging It
 

Since we were one of a very few teams that went to a non-bagging regional week 1, then to a bagging regional week 3 I will explain how it worked shipping from the event.

On Saturday of Midwest, we had to place our robot in the bag, lock it down, and place it in the crate. We shipped it using Fedex (or Sheppard, I can't remember) back home. We then took it with us to our Michigan district.

As far as a compressed practice day, etc. I hope they make it work like the districts worked. We had 8 hours starting the Sunday of the week of our next district to take our robot out of the bag and practice / work on the robot. The rules were a minimum unbagging of 30 minutes each session and a maximum of 8 hours. Practice day (Thursday) load in started at 6pm and was until 9pm. The main field was open for practice at this time. The better part of Friday morning was open practice and opening ceremonies was around 10:30am. Matches ran until 7pm and there were no Friday Awards. Teams got about 1/2 as much time to fix their robots as a regular regional, but also had the 8 hours during the week to make up for it.

I hope it works that way for these compressed regionals.

Paul

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I think the policy applies to the Regional, not the home location of the team attending it. If you are going to a bagging regional, you take your robot with you and take it back home - that might be 10 miles or 600 miles.

The wording states that there is no shipping at these regionals.

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But not all compressed regionals will be bag & tag. For example, DC had enough teams in 2009 that matches would need to start on Thursday afternoon to get in 10 qualifiers. Teams will not have access to their robots until Thursday morning when they arrive at the venue.

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Friday until 8 is tough with "pick list" meetings generally occurring after the event. With the 6pm end time, it allows time for dinner and a pick meeting without making it a late night.

How about 3-7pm on Thursday? It's a nice half a day worth of matches. Most teams can make it through inspection by 3 (if they know they have to in order to play) and it still leaves an hour before pits close to tune things up before Friday. If practice matches started at 8:30, it would leaves 6 hours of practice matches. Using fill lines, if teams want the practice, the opportunity should be there. Plus it guarantees a match list on Thursday night which is an added bonus.

-EOB

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I wonder if they really thought about having both Canadian Regionals as Bag and Tag. I think US teams would still need to ship their robot to those events. I don't think border officials would let any sealed bag cross the border, no matter what kind of paperwork accompanied it.

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Still very confused about our home Regional (Pittsburgh)...

Bill's Blog/FRC email says this:

Which leads me to these two questions:

1) It states qualifying will start sometime Friday morning, with practice rounds running during load-in. Is this load-in/practice still going to be Thursday?
2) It also states qualifiers may start mid-day Thursday...? Does this not apply to Pittsburgh/Sacramento?

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TRADITIONAL regionals (i.e. not Pittsburgh) may have their qualifications start mid-day Thursday.

Pittsburgh will follow the scenario you listed in item #1. It appears as if people need Bill Miller to answer the question, "When will load-in at Pittsburgh/Sacramento take place?" Thursday night or Friday morning? Has that been answered?

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Well I can now confirm that Pittsburgh will be a 2-day Regional. They just informed me of that as I registered for it. So. Load-in/practice will be Friday morning at Pittsburgh, and qualifiers will indeed start mid/late morning on Friday.

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Did the registration say load in on Friday morning or are you assuming?

I am curious because load in Thursday evening would make it the exact model that the districts followed.

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I guess I made an educated assumption because it said that Pittsburgh was going to be a compressed 2-day Regional this year, on March 12-13 2010. With neither of those days being Thursday, I'm assuming Friday (morning) will be load-in day.

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The reason I ask is that the Michigan districts were classified as 2 day events and we still had Thursday night for load in.

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Well having crossed the border in the OTHER direction for the past several years, I wouldn't be too worried about going to a Bag and Tag event in the states. First of all, I would have no problem unbagging the robot for the border agents to inspect and then bagging it up afterwards. That is allowed... just log it. It will take some extra time, especially if you run into a particularly picky border guard, but there are lots of mechanical competitions where machines cross the border to compete every weekend... drag races, rowing events, VEX tournaments.... if you allow some time, have your papers in order and speak nicely to the border guards there is rarely a big issue. In fact they haven't asked to open our tool boxes once, going either way!

Of course if we were planning to go to Toronto this year, instead of Seattle, we wouldn't be "bringing the robot with us" unless we could either make special luggage allowances with our airline. What we would do is crate up the robot and ship it to one of the very friendly and helpful Ontario teams who would hold on to it for us until we arrived. That isn't so far from what we used to do, as the FedEx donation was useless for shipping within Canada, so we had to organize our own shipping on the Vancouver - Toronto leg anyway.

Finally, as much as I like having more matches, I really did like having lots of practice time on Thursday (especially once we could "bump" into lines when other teams didn't show) as it let me give lots of students a chance to be involved with a drive team and for some of the juniors to get a taste of being on the field. (Our limiting factor on practice matches in Seattle last year was that our motors were overheating...)

What really concerns me about starting matches on Thursday isn't the preparedness of the teams, but the ability of the inspectors to get robots through tech by noon... even if the machines are ALL ready to go at 8:00am Thursday the inspectors will be very rushed.... and the time for the field volunteers and systems to settle in to a routine.

But you know... if we'd been doing things this way for years and someone told us they were getting RID of bagging and requiring FedEx shipping, or cutting down our matches from 10 to 7 so there could be more practice time... well, we'd be just as concerned.

This will all work out in the end.

Jason

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True, but I think you hit the nail on the head when you talked about the venue staff. I know for a fact that we need to be out of our venue by a certain time due to contractual considerations. I do not know if the contract could be altered or how much it would cost, but right off hand, I would think that it would not be reasonable to extend the day. I am sure, however, that the volunteers would gladly do it.

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We usually compete at Silicon Valley and Sacramento. SVR, March 18-20, is a traditional regional with shipping. Sacramento, March 31-April 1, is a compressed, mid-week "Bag and Tag" event. Based on what we've been told by FIRST, we expect to be uncrating/unbagging our robot at Sacramento sometime on March 30 with practice matches late that afternoon. Because of the timing, I'm wondering if we'll be allowed to bag the robot at SVR and bring it back to school, especially if there's one of those 8-hour windows for unbagging it before Sacramento.

And do I understand correctly that the robot goes into a bag and then into its crate? We're in the process of designing and building a new crate that will be part of our pit structure, and this sounds like something we should consider.

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Wasn't there a Bill's Blog post talking about changes to crates or something? Sorry if that's totally wrong but I seem to recall something.

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I'll look through the blogs. Thanks.
<a bit later>
August 13: "Heads up, Section 4 of the competition manual (Robot Shipping) may change this year. FRC is working with a FedEX packing engineer to review our current crate criteria in an effort to improve efficiency in shipping."

Any idea when new specs will be available?

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Even if it does meet the new specifications hinted at in August, you won't necessarily be able to bring a crate to a "bag" regional. Depending on the venue, the available entrances for teams could be too small for a robot crate.

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Paul- I guess that could hold true for Pittsburgh 2010. From what I understand, Pittsburgh is getting a new Regional Director this season. Hopefully we'll be hearing from that person soon with further details on this new format.

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I hope it is an early load in for thursday evening. It will be a mess trying to get everyone into the service door on Friday morning and have any time to just get organized in the pits before qualifying starts. The loading dock is not very user friendly for trailers and 30 teams trying to get into it.

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I don't know how we got so far without thinking of this simple answer of how to get each team 10 qualification matches.

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Luckily, Sacramento is at the UC Davis ARC again so access shouldn't be an issue. But you made me wonder if we might need a pallet jack to get the crate to our pit. Guess we'll have to wait for all the details on "Bag and Tag" events to be announced.

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Quoted for truth.

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IMO, three's a crowd, but necessary, while more than three is just a crowd.

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That's a hard argument to justify without knowing the gameplay mechanics, rules, or field layout of a game.

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Considering how full a 6 robot field is even in Lunacy, which had basically an empty field, barring stuff like alternate disablement or something I can't really see how 4v4 would work. Apparently it will though?

Though if the game is 4v4 wouldn't FIRST's Championship planning show 5 regional winners per event? This would at least give us advance notice.

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But it is justifiable based upon Regional and District Event sizes, which are known right now.

Having 4x4 in a 32 team event, would mean 8 on the field, 8 on deck, and another 8 in the hole. That's 24 teams, out of 32 available. That means you're competing about once every four matches. Assuming there is a [generous] six minute total time for each match cycle, that means on average you would only be in your pit 6 out of every 24 minutes.

That might not be a big deal for veteran powerhouse teams which have 50+ students, but for anything less this would be a nightmare scenario.

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Don't forget the trailers. That "empty field" was filled with 12 robot-sized mobile objects. But if you look at an overhead view, it actually wasn't as crowded as it appeared from the side.

Good point.

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To support the argument that 4x4 would be difficult/impossible, aren't you making an awful lot of assumptions here? The argument only holds water if virtually every other aspect of the game/competition remains the same. To whit:
- What if the number of robots per team is not limited to one?
- What happens if the size of the robots is significantly reduced?
- What happens if the length of a match is significantly extended?
- What happens if the size of the field is altered/increased?
- What happens if the performance envelope of the robots is not limited to a single two dimensional surface?

Just a few thoughts to consider.

-dave


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Well now, should I move this to a "game hint" thread ... :ahh:

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:ahh: The ensuing conundrum of game strategies hurts my head.

I wouldn't doubt the robot sizes have been reduced, with a reduced maximum weight requirement as well. Transporting a bot and tools was a large piece of our budget last year.

I think this is an excellent point, except for the fact that the competition format isn't released until kickoff as part of the game manual. This means that behind closed doors they may already be accounting for additional qualified teams yet haven't announced or released the info.

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There are ways to get more than 6 robots on the field every 6 minutes other than by having all of the robots on the field at once. Two (slightly) smaller fields, side by side, playing alternating rounds of 2v2 would be one way. Back-to-back matches (cutting down on queuing/reset times) would be another.

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This particular assumption is made based on the premise "10 matches at a regional is feasible because the game puts 8 teams on a field instead of 6".

Stop making me think so hard! :D

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Or use the strategy used before 2001: only operate the robots from one side of the field, and set up the other side (sans robots/power) for the next match during the current one.

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Remember too that in the water game you have the entire pool volume to deal with. So while 6 robots may fill the floor of the arena, they take up very little space when looking at the entire volume. So 8 robots at a time would pick up the cycle time.

(Yes, this is really off the topic of Bagging and Tagging ....)

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;)

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Starting to look more and more like the VEX Robotics Competition all the time...

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Sadly :confused:

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Which is modeled after the FIRST Robotics Competition...

Oh boy! What a loop we have here! :eek:

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Oh Snap!
So busy that I didn't even know about the bag-tag regional events.
Only had time to sign up for our week 1 regional.
Thank God its a traditional one.

Interesting points. The only downfall for teams that have to travel far, is that they cant benefit from the bag-tag process.
If cutting down time out of school for students is one of the points for a condensed regional, why not do more Friday, Saturday and Sunday events, like NYC the past few years? Problem solved.
Sure, everyone will be tired the next day at work. But, hasn't anyone been tired on a Monday morning before? ;)

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Probably because VRC had a fresh start with a model to begin with and improve upon whereas FRC had to start from scratch and has had to continually evolve over 19 years. The same people continue to do both FRC and VRC and it's a shame this implied insult was even thrown out there.

---

In my mind, a 4v4 would take pressure off of teams to create robots to 'do it all' in a game.

If the game were simple yet the tasks complex and the restrictions limiting, teams would almost be forced to specialize in one task and use teamwork to do the rest. Not only could this create more complicated strategies and encourage us all to finish simple bots before ship date, it could help even the powerhouse teams in the funding department since we're creating 10 iterations of a simple machine rather than an intricate one. To me this seems like a logical combination of options given the financial state of some teams.

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Jesse, I don't think that an insult was meant or implied, at least by Rick. Now, there is another post in this thread in response to Rick's that is closer to an insult, and to that post's maker I have only this to say: I don't agree with you.

Also, I think that a 2v2 would get more teams trying to do it all, at least depending on the game.

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That's OK if you don't agree. I would prefer to continue to participate in a Varsity Level Competition.

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It's fine to not want to go the VRC/FTC route, but that "Internet tone of voice" makes that a deliberate insult to both of those. May I remind you that VRC has a college-level competition? And that all of the other college-level robotics competitions that I know about are 1 Vex-sized robot at a time?

And, as has already been pointed out, VRC is modeled after FRC. The first VRC game (back when it was the FVC pilot) was a scaled-down version of the 2004 FRC game, Raising the Bar. So you're saying that the model for a competition is starting to look like that competition (which looks like the model), which is sad?

Insults (and whining, for that matter) take FRC out of the varsity level, in my opinion. It makes whoever does that sound like Mr. Kiffin in Tennessee.

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How would anything about having two fields and alternating between matches have anything to do with the quality of competition? To be honest it just seems like you were jumping on the opportunity to diss another, rather unrelated program.

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There's precedent you know. In 1992 FRC robots were roughly the same size as today's FTC/VRC 'bots.

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Calling something more like Vex would be a compliment from Rick :)

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Please come tell my students who have spent just as much time and effort (if not more) on their Vex competitions as my FRC students have on theirs that.

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Bigger and Heavier does not make something a more VARSITY LEVEL COMPETITION..

Innovation does.... this can be accomplished at any scale.

I believe one of the issues that arises is visibility from the stands...
Vex competitions and FTC competitions (and BEST and others) all have smaller footprint robots. It is much more difficult to see what is happening from the stands.... not that this is necessarily a bad thing....at least for the competitors..

Scale is a tricky thing... most of the time smaller is MUCH harder...

We are in the process of building an approximately half-scale FRC type robot...
with a base size of 15 X 20. And a max height of 30" The FRC components do NOT lend themselves to this scale...particularly the control system.

It has presented some real design challenges... and continues to.

Scaling down the robots would help a great deal in shipping ... etc.

I would think that perhaps a robot with a 20 X 30 robot might be attainable or perhaps a 24 X 24 footprint.... given the present control system with perhaps a 36 " height... It would be a real design challenge...

That IS what we thrive on isn't it?

These robots would much easier to transport

I can't see this year's competition changing the size very much... given that we are using the same control system and battery....(from KOP data already released...)

We could start to reduce the size back though.... so perhaps this year...??
A robot that starts at 24 X 36 with a max starting height of 42" ?
or max height of 36" ?

This could make the crate much smaller.... perhaps something like 4 X 4 X 4
Easier to handle in shipping .... lighter too...
We all know that the crate usually weighs MUCH more than the robot...

Just ideas... we can do this.
We can do whatever is decided to do...
We like tough challenges...

Go FIRST...

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In 1992, FRC robots were roughtly the same size as a couple of today's FRC robots' batteries. :)

The TechnoKats 1992 robot is smaller than the TechnoKats 2009 robot's control system alone, without battery.

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I think this was discussed in the Rumor Mill about next year's game. Some interesting thoughts there. Worth looking at.

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That is a little misleading considering the controls were not on the robot. It is about the size of a battery though. Actually I thought it was a part of a FRC robot and wondered why Eric was bringing a robot up in pieces the first time I saw it. Regardless, that 1992 robot is clean, elegant, and... well, just freaking cool.

Also, if you guys think that FTC is the minor leagues you are NOT going to like my next sentence. FRC needs to emulate FLL. I mean think about this, the goal of FRC is to inspire as many people as we can right? How many FLL events are there? How many teams? How many COUNTRIES? And I can tell you, as an FLL alumni, mentor, and judge, those students are inspired and there are a LOT of them. They have to be doing something right down there in the intramural leagues because how many of us went through it and are now involved in FRC? An interesting statistic might also be, what percentage of FLL students go on to be in FRC (if it is available) compared to the percentage of FRC students that come back to FRC after graduation.

You guys, remember the robot is a tool, a large, complex, and often shiny tool. Use it to help make your work easier. You don't need a 130lb robot racing around the field at 20fps with a 14' arm to inspire kids. Does it look better on TV than a 18"x18"x18" robot moving at a slow walk and struggling to pick up a football? Of course it does. Do they both inspire students? Nope, the mentors do that. Changing the scale of the robot doesn't change anything.

Now, those things being said, I think that FRC is the perfect scale. Smaller means that it gets boring for TV (less complicated mechanisms which are always impressive). Larger means it gets more expensive.

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Since my wildly humorous comment above may apparently be misconstrued -- I was suggesting that we might be seeing parallel evolution with different processes trending towards a similar result. I started saying three years ago that FVC would be successful only in that it looked like a smaller version of FRC and not Sr. FLL. That came true. Now in solving some different problems, an FVC/FTC/VRC-style multi-field 2v2 competition with smaller robots has been posited as a possible solution. Hence, the jocular and somewhat ironic comment about convergence. FRC --> FVC --> FTC/VRC --> new smaller FRC. See?

One small disagreement: smaller <> less complex. Take a look at this VEX robot: http://www.vexforum.com/gallery/showimage.php?i=3051. You couldn't see it on television, but there is a lot of engineering going on there in an 8-pound package.

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Do mentors helping students build robots regardless of size inspire? Yes.
Do robots regardless of size make the general public take interest in science and technology? Yes
Do students learn some important life skills like team work regardless of robot size? yes

But, I personally feel that having a predetermined kit to work from is an extremely limiting factor in many robotics competitions out there. Yes, there are students who get something out of them but, having an open ended kit allows for a higher diversity of students to participate. For example, we are currently trying to recruit a senior who has his welding certificate from our local community college. Whether or not he joins the team is completely dependent on being able to weld to keep his skills up. There is no way we could recruit him if we did VRC/FTC. The opportunities for students to be exposed to and learn about real world manufacturing, fabrication and assembly are so much more advanced in FRC.

My other major issue with VRC/FTC/FLL is the event format. Having multi-day FRC events makes our program stand out as being something more than a science fair to our school and community. Having regionals where students on our team get to tell their their friends that they are going to a 3 day event in another state is a BIG deal. And for those students who aren't on the honor roll or play a sport it is a HUGE deal.

I think that FFL is a great thing. I have personally volunteered at our local FLL event for the past 5 years (many times on my birthday). Its fun and a great scale for that age group.

I think the greatest thing for FTC would be to allow 6th and 7th graders to participate. If they would be allowed to compete then FIRST would have a better overall system for promoting its core values. I would stand completely behind a setup where a student could go FLL in 4-5th grades, FTC in 6-8th grades and FRC in 9-12th grades. Leaving the overlap to adjust for economic and emotional levels of course.

Back to the thread topic: Agreed

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Note that some school districts complain about students missing a lot of school when they go to a 2-day event. (I'm leaving Saturday off because it isn't a school day.) For those schools, FTC/VRC could be a better option.

Likewise, absolutely nothing says that you can't be in one, two, three, four, or more competitions. Many a team does FTC/VRC (and FLL, in a supporting role) in the fall and FRC in the spring.

Predetermined kit to work from is NOT a limit. See the early FRC rules once again. (I understand that sometimes a drill was included--it was used for building the robot, then driving the robot.) See the creativity shown by the teams back then.

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Humans used to use stone tools and hunt with sticks. We figured it out eventually, the same can be said for FRC evolution. Our school has learned to understand and support our efforts(and missed days) due to the effort we have made the past 8 years to change the culture.


I don't see why you feel the need to be hostile. I understand your position and respect your view. How about you do the same for me?

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I don't understand why you felt the need to insult FTC and VRC. I'm trying not to be hostile towards you; but when it seems that you are hostile towards something for no reason, then that kind of riles me. That's part of why I started the thread on negativity on CD--people are being negative/hostile for no reason.

You may not like something, but please don't insult it for no reason other than not liking it.

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Eric and Will, please enjoy this fact-based post.

On the FIRST website FRC is called “The varsity sport for the mind” I cannot find the word Varsity linked with FTC, FLL, or JFLL.

Facts and information for why Will chooses FRC with respect to other competitions. Even if some are just opinions. But does he think that FTC/FLL/JFLL is not important?

This information shows otherwise.

<opinion>I fail to see any of this as hostile or insulting, but just as two people with different opinions.</opinion> Without arguments and opinions CD will be nothing but a group of yes-men. Just because someone disagrees doesn't mean they are being negative.

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maybe no one wants to hear it but i will tell a story.......

Once upon a time I fancied myself a classic guitar player, a lousy one indeed. I set off on a quest to purchase the 'perfect guitar'. I visited the classic guitar dealer and the salesman immediately spotted me, a middle aged man with money in the pocket.

So I was sat down in the showroom with attendents bring me guitar after guitar to try out. Eventually I settled on three beautiful guitars. There was no single perfect instrument. It was like having to decide between a beautiful blonde, brunette, and redhead.

All were unique, all perfect in their own way. What I really wanted was all three guitars.

Obviously the point I'm trying to make is there is no perfect robotics program. There is a best fit solution for each individual.

Setting aside the FTC/VEX debacle for the moment, there is IMHO no useful point in saying that FTC, VEX, or FRC is 'the best' in general. It depends on your specific circumstances.

My team and I do a lot of presentations and the recommendations we make differ from crowd to crowd. We ignore the fact that VEX isn't part of FIRST and make the recommendation when necessary. Ditto for FTC. FRC is what the doctor ordered for other audiences.

In other threads there are comments about the the wisdom of changing control systems in FRC. I can tell you without reservation that the control system changes has opened the doors to new and important audiences.

But the FTC/VEX debacle, that is another story.

And to put a fine point on the issue.... If your team mission is to "change culture and inspire students" then that mission trumphs a lot of things, including promoting a specific brand of robotics, or when necessary even robotics itself. We have to drink our own kool-aid and be an honest broker...

.

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FRC is definitely a Varsity Sport.

We do both VEX and FRC now. I dont see any differences in regards to the demand for time spent on design and programming, while working with the kids. However, the resources necessary to be successful at both are vastly different.
Resources meaning mentors, facilities, materials, funding, fabrication, and $$$.

I dont think the comparisons in this thread are apples to apples.

Certain team goals can be met with both FRC and VEX, but certainly not all of them. If one of the missions of FIRST is to inspire kids to see/experience what's out there in industry, then FRC is certainly the best at providing that avenue, hands down IMO.

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If one was to call the FRC "varsity," I would be inclined to refer to the FTC and VRC not as "junior varsity," but closer to "varsity, jr."

I like the current FRC size, nominally speaking, of course. You can usually see it from the stands (remember, not all of us watch it on TV) and can still lug it around with two people. It's small enough to fit into a classroom, yet large enough to demand respect and be gestured upon without 'pointing to' the whole robot. Plus, they're good to lean on sometimes.

FTC/FVC bots can be carried in by one person, be set down on a desk, and are a good pointing to size. Of course, if not noticed, they can be tripped upon. (poor Jake)

Plus, their relative sizes seem to be the perfect size for David & Goliath. But don't take my word for it.

And remember: if we weren't all crazy, we'd all go insane.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjBIBJV-cKg


david vs what? :D

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Like I said, don't take my word for it, you should probably take his instead.