[BB] Bills Blog 11/10/11
 

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2011

This just in
Good Afternoon Teams,

The Administrative Section of the 2012 FRC Manual is now live on our website. Student Award submission in STIMS and Mentor Award Submission in TIMS went live today. That should give you plenty to read and do this weekend.

I will be taking tomorrow off as its Veteran’s Day.

58 days until Kickoff
See you then!
POSTED BY BILL AT 4:19 PM

Re: [BB] Bills Blog 11/10/11
 

It's interesting that they're suggesting teams nominate juniors for dean's list. I understand they could benefit from it the most but I would like to think it's more than that.

Re: [BB] Bills Blog 11/10/11
 

Stop kidding us Bill, we all know you're going to be playing Skyrim all day.

Re: [BB] Bills Blog 11/10/11
 

They have always suggested that. Our team has always tended to submit one junior and senior. It's really up to you. I know that some teams submit sophomores.

Cass

Re: [BB] Bills Blog 11/10/11
 

Said under 5.5 # 2. is that bumpers may be bagged separately from the robot with its own tag accounted for in the Robot Lock-Up Form. I do not know if this was in previous manuals, but I feel like pointing it out just in case.

Re: [BB] Bills Blog 11/10/11
 

Wow ... that is great... they actually listen to us...
Good for them... this will allow un-bumpered robots to get through doors a lot easier...

Safer for handling too..

GREAT!!

Re: [BB] Bills Blog 11/10/11
 

The idea of locking up bumpers separately seems odd, as the ability to work on your bumpers post-bag dosen't give you any advantage at all. It's better than requiring them to be in the bag, I guess.

Re: [BB] Bills Blog 11/10/11
 

sounds like one of my former teams... the senior team lead was one nominee, and a junior, myself, was the other.

IMHO, whoever deserves to be nominated should get it. heck, if that meant a freshman, then it be them (I have seen freshmen that were worthy, believe me). if that happened to be two senior, then they get it. To me, let the 2 most worthy students get it, period.

Re: [BB] Bills Blog 11/10/11
 

Through NCWIT, I befriended Beth Hadley, who was one of the Deans List Winners from the first year. She said that Dean and them wanted to give the award to juniors so that they could put it on college applications. Apparently they wanted it to become a prestigious award that would help high achieving FIRST students (although every FIRST student is high achieving..) get into fancy colleges. Certain awards and competitions, like the Intel Science Fair, are acknowledged as being a 'big deal' and FIRST wants its Dean's List to join that kinda thing. Supposedly MIT already recognizes this as very important, which must be true because thats where Beth is now! (although she won Deans List as a senior)

Re: [BB] Bills Blog 11/10/11
 

Not requiring them to be bagged would allow you to put off building them entirely until after Bag Day.

Re: [BB] Bills Blog 11/10/11
 

I can see this already:

Do we have everything loaded?
Yup.
You sure?
Mhmm.
Then what's that pile of stuff over there?
Oh that's just stuff to make ...bumpers.
What do you mean they're not built!?
Well...we didn't have to put them in the bag...So we haven't built them yet... :D
:eek:


Seriously though, I've seen plenty of teams have issues getting though doors with them on. For that reason, my team has always packed the bumpers in the bag with them resting on top of the robot as opposed to on the robot.

Re: [BB] Bills Blog 11/10/11
 

Unfortunately I've overheard this conversation on Thursdays at events.

Re: [BB] Bills Blog 11/10/11
 

Hmmmmmmmmmm.... new scoring system?

Re: [BB] Bills Blog 11/10/11
 

Bumpers are technically considered Fabricated Parts therefore subject to Withholding restrictions in previous years. This was ignored at many events, and wasn't uncommon to see a team bring in what appeared to be 35lbs of upgrade parts along with two sets of bumpers at 12-15lbs a set.

Not to mention we've put as many as 20 man hours into our bumpers in any given year, so being able to make them after ship means those 20 man hours can be spent elsewhere...

Re: [BB] Bills Blog 11/10/11
 

I think that the intention of that section was, as Bob pointed out, so that teams have an easier time getting a bagged robot through the door. It's sometimes an interesting struggle to get them through doors with bumpers.

From the wording that's there, they still have to be bagged on bag day, whether it be with the robot or in a bag by themselves.

Re: [BB] Bills Blog 11/10/11
 

Why would this be a bad thing?

Re: [BB] Bills Blog 11/10/11
 

Depends on your perspective whether it's good or bad. It fails the "all tools down" test.

Re: [BB] Bills Blog 11/10/11
 

I wouldn't say having more time to work on bumpers is extremely beneficial, but you could use the time to make the bumpers easier to come off/on, or in 148's case, add flashing red lights to it. :p

Re: [BB] Bills Blog 11/10/11
 

Why is there a debate about having extra time to build the bumpers? They have to be bagged at the same time as the robot and logged onto the lock-up form.

Re: [BB] Bills Blog 11/10/11
 

you know, you don't HAVE to build the bumpers pre-bag. If it is like years past, couldn't you make them as part of the withholding allowance? (or has that been a confirmed change?)

of course, like anything, there is big difference between "can" and "should"