Re: Need for Inspections Rules Changes
 

In 2008 our team shipped our hurdling robot, we needed to add a few stickers, and trim off part of our tusks on our robot, which we knew would have to be trimmed to pass inspection, but we wanted to know exactly what needed to come off as we wanted to keep as much of it on. And we were 35lbs under weight. Yes, our robot wasn't perfect and we worked like crazy to get it done for ship but it didn't need much on Thursday

I'm not saying that everyone needs to have stay on perfect schedule(we certainly didn't) or have a perfect robot un-crated Thursday. Everyone, including my team, will have to say in week 5, "what will have to go in order to have a working robot by 4PM on Thursday to be ready for our first qualification matches". That is what FIRST is asking for. If you ship your robot and say, "it will need only a few adjustments thursday." Your fine. But if you need to do a total rebuild, then you're going to have problems with making inspection.

Veteran teams for 5+ years will be expected to be ready to go on Thursday early afternoon, and yes there will be teams especially rookies that will need to do a lot on thursday. But if this is what FIRST is going to do to get the 10 matches in then that's what happens.

Re: Need for Inspections Rules Changes
 

Kevin,
In a perfect world, this team would have been able to attend a good and representative pre-ship party on Saturday, and had the resources to design and finish the work on Sunday and Monday to make ship.
In our world, teams can't make a pre-ship, or it is held on Sunday, or schools are closed on Mondays, or there is no machine shop facilities available and no mentorship on the final two days. We cannot force teams, especially rookies, to live without the ability to modify designs and get help making changes or repairs. A rule change of this caliber makes things easy for event staff at the expense of the students.
Every event I have ever attended or volunteered at has had these teams. Last year this easily exceeded five teams at each of the regionals I attended and several at the Champs.

Re: Need for Inspections Rules Changes
 

I certainly agree that organizing pre-ship inspections would be worthwhile.
Catching major wiring issues, mechanical problems, size/weight overages, bumper illegalities, are all solveable at home.

However, I must say I like the work on Thursday's and think of it as an integral part of the engineering process. It's a final review and rework by peer engineers. We get 11 matches for a field of 47 teams at SBPLI, but we only deal with 3 or 4 rookies each year. You have a much larger problem to overcome in Seattle.

I inspected a half dozen robots before shipping last season and caught quite a few issues that were easy to fix and work around at home. All the local rookies and rookie-veterans get visits and several others request inspections. It's on a volunteer basis though, and it's a lot easier for one inspector to travel between teams, than for all teams to bring a robot and pit crew to give up hours organizing a road trip to a central location.

I do think "required" is too strong a stance, and having a fixed date is not workable. Possibly, calling it a deadline date would make it doable.
I think the date must be flexible, because:

• Many of our teams, here at least, are forced by a school break to usually ship the Friday before that final Saturday. The one year out of 4 that they aren't forced to ship early, they lose 9 days of build time instead (except for the ones who come live with us for a week).
• Limited number of inspectors, large number of teams, team meeting times, distance to cover - all would force inspections to be carried out over the whole last week I think.

Other issues to resolve:
-- Teams that need help the most never think they have an issue ahead of time. I find it easier to just show up.
-- Pre-ship party won't pull in all the teams that need to be inspected, especially, the under-mentored ones who won't easily be able to transport their robot. Remote teams probably need to be visited.
-- A traveling scale will catch gross over weight problems, but could still be 5 lbs off from the official Regional scale.
-- Drastic size problems could be identified, but without a sizing box many teams will resort to a wait and see attitude if it's close.

Re: Need for Inspections Rules Changes
 

Like Al said at every regional we attend there is at least one team that we have to spend all day with Thursday just to get them a robot they can compete with. In one case last year a team didn't even have a mentor to sign off for the team, one of our mentors did it for them. Expand that by several other veteran teams doing the same thing at the same regional and you can see how big a problem it can be.

Many teams (through no fault of there own) just don't have the experience mentor resources needed to get a robot built and ready. Many will not have a pre-ship event to go too.

I like the idea of an early Thursday rookie meeting. Also a quick morning trip through the pits by the inspectors can help identify teams in need of help from veteran teams.

I know that we always watch the inspection board and make an effort to seek out teams that need help. We also always plan to have a crew in the pits until closing time, even if our robot needs no work.

For a fun exercise we try and identify what will be the thing that teams forget and need help with every year. The two previous years we brought extra flag holders, last year we brought extra materials to make bumpers.

Re: Need for Inspections Rules Changes
 

We had one of those completely mentor-less teams at NYC last season.

Re: Need for Inspections Rules Changes
 

Coming from a team that is notorious for finishing our robots on Thursday (sometimes Friday, sometimes the Thursday after winning a regional when we completely change our robot) I can tell you that we NEVER plan to do this.

We always plan to have the robot done in plenty of time to practice at our scrimmage, take nice pre-ship pics of the robot, etc... But, we also always push our limit every year. That's just the way we are. The format in Michigan helped us somewhat this year with the "Thursday"...but we still had lots of work to do at Cass Tech.

I think the idea of a "pre-inspection" the Saturday before "ship date" is a nice one, but as some have noted, this could be a problem for some teams due to logistics. But, here is the question: what happens if teams "fail" this pre-inspection? Do they get kicked out of their upcoming competition? Or is it more of just an informative inspection?

Re: Need for Inspections Rules Changes
 

Just a quick reminder: This is a proposal at this point, I am gathering feedback. No decisions have been made on any of this, nor are they mine to make. That will be up to Bill Miller and gang.

This pre-ship inspection could be mandatory. Your pre-ship inspection is informative only. You can't fail it, but you have to have one. We are making an effort to provide teams with better timed feedback on what might be an issue on their robot so they can use the final couple of days to fix things that they might otherwise miss until Thursday. You still must pass the Thursday inspection. The pre-ship inspection is intended to help teams not get surprised at the contest.

As an aside, we always have a number of veteran teams who don't pass inspection on Thursday. This isn't just a rookie issue. Far from it. We have had several sub 1000 team numbers in huge trouble trying to pass inspection. Usually because they missed something in the rules or Q&A

Another option is to not have mandatory inspections on or before pre-ship Saturday, and just tell teams they have from 9 AM to 4 PM on Thursday to pass inspection. Not done at 4PM? Tough luck, you will miss the first round or two. That is unfair to your alliance partners, who will really start wishing someone had done pre-ship inspections!

The bottom line is to provide 10 rounds, we need to add about 4 hours (3 rounds) to the current schedule for large regionals. I am proposing adding 2 rounds of contest to Thursday evening, and 1 round to Fridays schedule.

Regardless of the time that inspections must be passed, teams are going to adapt and get the job done. The fact that you had all day on Thursday is actually fairly arbitrary. It is what teams have learned to expect, but it is only expectation. If we change the expectation, everyone will do just fine.

Kevin

Re: Need for Inspections Rules Changes
 

What about having a BOM due before the event? That was the sticking point for probably half the teams that didn't pass Thursday at L.A. last year. To make it easier, you could have it online, then check at the event. Additions may also be made at the event.

And, it's about the only part that can be done outside the event if need be.

Just a crazy idea that might not work...

Re: Need for Inspections Rules Changes
 

Kevin,
Forgive me for being redundant as I have said this before on many occasions...
I was just wondering, to whom are we giving the hard lesson?
The two alliance partners that now will almost certainly lose the match even though they came to play.
OR
The three opposing alliance partners that know they are winning because the other alliance can only field two or maybe even one robot instead of showing they are the better alliance?
OR
The sponsors (who want to see how their thousand(s) of dollars have been spent), parents, mentors, school administrators (who are faced with cutbacks and budget concerns), school board and families of the losing alliance?

Given a choice between everyone competing and having a few teams get an extra match or two, I know which one I would pick.

Lead Inspector

Re: Need for Inspections Rules Changes
 

How about next year all rookie teams need to have a sponsoring 3 year veteran team before they can register. Atleast we will know someone is helping them, even if it is just by phone for those teams that are really out in the sticks. I never thought our team would have the time or manpower to help another team, but what a great feeling seeing that team out on the field.

Re: Need for Inspections Rules Changes
 

I think in many cases that it is mind over matter. It goes back to the 'if you think you can't, you're right' attitude. Many teams, especially teams that are less than five years old, are still dealing with aspects that are overwhelming and don't think they have the ability or manpower to help other teams or to look at the bigger picture. The truth is that if they want to badly enough, they will find a way - even if it involves a shift in thinking and attitude.

Re: Need for Inspections Rules Changes
 

But the problem is, what can you do. Inspectors are going around reminding teams that you need to get inspected, if you don't get done in time, you aren't done. My team spent much of our time replacing our shooter and belting, several inspectors came to our pit to remind us of the time. Is it really fair to hold off on qualification matches because one team didn't finish inspection. Then you are punishing all of the other teams whom worked hard to get done and inspected so they could get their matches.

If any team needs help to finish in time for inspection at GSR, find me or my team. I'll gladly help you out along with anyone on my team. If my team is all ready to go earlier in the day, I'll go around to the rookies and inquire if they are in need of assistance to be ready for inspection.

Re: Need for Inspections Rules Changes
 

There's a difference IMO between holding off matches to let teams finish inspection and not scheduling matches on Thursday. How often has everyone passed inspection by Thursday at 2 or 3 PM or so?

I'd rather reward teams that screwed up and "punish" those that didn't (with more practice time) than have any teams not able to compete who worked hard to come and do so. The teams that came ready should be content knowing that they were prepared, then help out everyone else.

Re: Need for Inspections Rules Changes
 

But what FIRST is dealing with is, we all would like more qualification matches. They are increasing it by having 2 rounds on Thursday. They are trying to get teams to finish/ just need a few fine tuning/adjustments to do on Thursday. It isn't the end of the world to work harder and longer(even though most of us including myself don't want to) during build season, check carefully over our robots to make sure we aren't using anything illegal, and if we do have something that could possibly be an issue to contact FIRST about it.

Re: Need for Inspections Rules Changes
 

I don't think this is a valid point since you didn't have to be inspected by 2 or 3pm, so there was no drive for everyone to do so.

I would love to see some statistics on how many teams weren't inspected by their first match Friday in both the traditional Regionals and at Michigan districts last year. We are already almost there in MI with only Friday morning for practice and start Quals right after. What was the failure to pass inspection rate in MI compared to the rest of the regions last year? Do we even have this info?