Re: 2011 FRC Season dates
 

I'm going against the norm. I say build season should be either 6 or 7 weeks depending on the game.
This year, teams were figuring out drivetrains for the "bump", scoring into goals aka "kicker" and then an end game. IMO, that was too much engineering in just a 6 week build season. I saw too many robots that didnt do much during the week 1 and some week 2 events.
With either a 7 week build season this year, OR an extra week before a week 1 regional, that might have made for a better set of week 1 regionals across the country.

This was by far the worst build season for our team since our rookie year, hands down. I'm pretty burnt out and need a break after IRI.

Re: 2011 FRC Season dates
 

I like the concept expressed by Collin Fultz earlier this year. No Bag&Tag nor shipping to Regional events. Teams are able repair and modify their robots throughout the Competition season.

I would prefer that there was an extra week between the last Regional and the Championship events to allow teams to repair and finalize their robot prior to the Championship event. The Ship date would be the Tuesday of the week prior to the week of the Championship event.

This would mean that only the teams going to the Championship event would be required to crate and ship their robots. For District and Regional events, teams would be required to arrange for their own robot transportation.

Re: 2011 FRC Season dates
 

I think a match with 6 469-clones would be very boring.

Re: 2011 FRC Season dates
 

Very true. Not sure I'ld say the same about the Simbotics sextuplets or a Host of Hots or a Herd of Chickens ...

Re: 2011 FRC Season dates
 

True, but a match where 4 - 6 robots could drive, control, kick, and hang as well and quickly as the top teams (33, 1114, 254, et al) would be some of the most exciting of the year. You'd be more likely to see those types of matches at regionals, instead of having to wait until Einstein.

Re: 2011 FRC Season dates
 

I truly don't think that this will help make robots that much more competitive. Teams that don't build good robots do it for a reason, and it's generally not because they don't have enough time. If you give them all the time in the world they're probably going to perform better initially, but I think it's just going to help them reach their ceiling more quickly. I think for a lot of them, that ceiling is going to be in the same place it was during a 6 week build period.

I'm guessing the reason poor performing robots get built is because teams are either not dedicated to the robot building process, don't have mentors to support the build, or are seriously, seriously limited by the resources available to them. None of those situations get any better with additional time. Incremental improvement, sure, but not dramatic improvement.

Re: 2011 FRC Season dates
 

Work expands to fill the time allotted. If you give a Week 6 competing team (1 competition) the full time from Kickoff to Week 6 to build, modify, test, and tweak their robot, they'll still show up at their event with a robot that needs major building on Thursday.

Re: 2011 FRC Season dates
 

You're both probably absolutely correct. Even with infinite access to our robot, I'm not sure Cyber Blue would have changed our bot that much from Ship Day to Championships. I was simply stating an opposing viewpoint to the notion that everyone would have simply copied the 469 design (though it still would have been possible to do with the witholding allowance).

Re: 2011 FRC Season dates
 

Of course everyone wouldn't change their robot midseason, but I think enough people would copy or 'get inspired by' the best ideas to make enough of the robots too similar. Just look at 2008 when several teams saw 121's buildseason video and then built a reverse hurdler. Yes, it may have made those teams more sucessful, but at the cost of orginality and robot diversity. Personally, I would have all different kinds of robots than higher scores by a couple of cookie cutter designs.

Although it may have been partially due to their style of play, all the deflectors/trampolines that teams built midseason really made the game less exciting, in my opinion. At MARC there were a couple of matches where both alliances had a deflector bot and it was just a race to see who was quicker scoring in the first zones. No variation in style and strategy makes for a boring match.

Re: 2011 FRC Season dates
 

There's been some discussion about holding two events in Seattle on two different weekends, but I'm not sure where that plan stands now.

Re: 2011 FRC Season dates
 

For what it's worth, I think deflector versus deflector matches have a lot more interesting strategic options than simply "cycle faster"! I imagine teams like 1625 and 294 actively defending one deflector by scoring from the back zone would have made strategy interesting, as well as the general elements of "score faster with less balls, or try and control as many as possible without necessarily scoring?" would have made these matches more interesting than what was seen at MARC. After IRI would probably be a better time to evaluate if "deflector versus deflector" would be unstrategic and boring.

Re: 2011 FRC Season dates
 

As you point out, cloning happens in the current system. And I agree with the perspectives that not all would take full advantage of additional time. Perhaps there would be more cloning or more effective cloning; I'm not convinced that would significantly detract from the diversity of designs or that it would be such a bad thing. It could result in good ideas being made better.

For me there are a few advantages. The opportunity to experience and practice continual improvement by developing your own concept or combining your concept with others that you see to create an even better outcome. For me this is an extension of Coopertition. It could take the pressure and intensity off of the build season (that may or may not be a good thing). It would reduce the burden on FedEx. It would provide teams the opportunity to be in their best possible condition when they arrive at Championships.

Re: 2011 FRC Season dates
 

What was this thread about? :p

Re: 2011 FRC Season dates
 

Oh you must be new here :cool:

Just wait for the two control system posts and then it will be a complete CD thread:

• Event Dates and which regionals are better
• Building skills
• Gracious professionalism and coopertition
• Robot design
• Bag and tag vs crates
• Control systems - Labview vs java and how the IFI controller was better

:rolleyes:

Re: 2011 FRC Season dates
 

Personally I wouldn't mind an extra week between ship date and Week 1 just because that is when we generally debug our programming and make it more than just survivable (we hold the whole control system back) espcially since we go to the DC regional which has been in Week 1.