Shipping the mini-bot?
 

Hi my team just has one question. Do you have to ship the mini bot with the robot? urgent the sooner the better.:ahh:

Re: Shipping the mini-bot?
 

You should review <R33>

Re: Shipping the mini-bot?
 

Nobody worries about shipping issues in the first, second or even fourth week.

Re: Shipping the mini-bot?
 

i know but it will determine if we work on the mini bots now or later.

Re: Shipping the mini-bot?
 

Is there a reason that you can't work on them both now and later?

Or, more to the point: Do you have a strategy? If no, stop. Minibot and robot work can wait. Get a strategy, then a list of what you need to be able to do to accomplish it.
Do you have a preliminary design? If no, stop. Get one. Make sure to have space for a minibot--there are some suggestions in the standardization thread.
Are you into the detailed design/build? If yes (and the answers to the above are both yes), then you probably want to focus on the main robot first. About Week 3/4, when you've got most of the work done/in progress, set a "tiger team" of 3-4 team members to work on the minibot build. It's smaller and somewhat simpler. That group will also get the fun of designing the fine details of the interface to the hostbot, like how you're activating/deploying the minibot, but you'll have a better idea of limitations imposed by the design.

Minibots are important, but they're not the entire game.

Also see the rule referenced by Joe.

Re: Shipping the mini-bot?
 

SIX WEEKS to design, build, test and then BAG it, hands OFF except for the allowed "retained items". It's in the rules, remember the G.P. part of FIRST?

Re: Shipping the mini-bot?
 

Guess what? The Minibot is explicitly excepted from the Withholding Allowance weight. And, you can retain just about any portion of the robot to work on in particular ways. This includes the Minibot.

That is also in the rules.

Re: Shipping the mini-bot?
 

A slanderous use of not only the rule book, but GP as a whole. Part of understanding gracious professionalism, is to also be PROFESSIONAL, which your post contained none of.

Before accusing someone of being "un-GP", maybe you should take it upon yourself to look up the actual rules the OP was asking about.

Emphasis mine.

-Brando

Re: Shipping the mini-bot?
 

If you know that you will make a minibot, then it is very important to put some form of thought into the deployment mechanism early on since you may have to order pneumatics, electronics, or other components that have a 3-5 day lead time or ship time. Thinking about it in Week 4 is too late is many cases, especially if the build schedule is delayed due to weather.

I only say this because the "Minibot Rate of Climb" thread got me thinking about the sequence of events needed to successfully deploy on the FRC field.

Re: Shipping the mini-bot?
 

I just have one question (and I don't mean to hi-jack the thread, or start a discussion: I'm just wondering)...what exactly did you see in the post that wasn't GP?

Re: Shipping the mini-bot?
 

I believe he was referring to a illegal creation of a minibot post-ship date, though this is only really possible if (a) it was illegal and (b) the team is zipping rather than shipping (bag&tag event).

Re: Shipping the mini-bot?
 

Hello!

It looks like there's really no definitive answer here and someone's asked on the FIRST forums but there's still no GDC answer... since the definition of ROBOT is ROBOT = HOSTBOT + MINIBOT, our team is still in question of this too. Does anyone now know whether the MINIBOT has to be shipped (or bagged) on ship date? We've read <R33> over and over with the definition of this and can't come to a conslusion!

Thanks,
Gen

Re: Shipping the mini-bot?
 

Gen,
The rule is referencing what you may bring to competition so the rule is telling you that the minibot may be brought with you to competition events. In the spirit of the minibot, FTC and FLL teams may also bring minibots to lend to FRC teams at the same events. FTC and FLL teams would not be subject to FRC ship or bag and tag rules so the minibot only is explained in R33 to allow for any FLL, FTC, or FRC team to bring in the minbot on competition days and it is not subject to the withholding allowance on FRC teams only.

Re: Shipping the mini-bot?
 

Awesome, thanks for confirming that for us!