Quote:
Originally Posted by Wayne TenBrink
The early results of this survey demonstrate the gap between the "Chief Delphi" crowd and everybody else. What percentage of total teams build a practice bot? Its nowhere close to 80%.
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Let's be careful to separate speculation from fact, here. I don't know if it is close to 80%, but I doubt anyone does at this juncture. I was surprised by
Collin's post - even though IRI has many upper-tier teams, it is not solely comprised of them. I would imagine that if FIRST expected to take any further action on this "extend the build season" proposal that they would ask the teams directly for their fact-gathering instead of relying solely on CD information. If FIRST did take that route, the results could vary as follows:
- regionally, in areas where there are fewer events vs. a greater number of competitive opportunities
- by team age, showing a greater number of rookies or 2nd year teams not (/not yet?) utilizing this strategy
- by enforced competition model, district areas vs. open competition areas
- by declared team sponsorship level/yearly budget amount
...and potentially by other socioeconomic or program-specific factors I'm not considering. We're also being pretty broad at what a "second robot" constitutes. Are we talking about teams that knowingly mill or punch a second or third set of pieces during the build season and assemble within the current 6 week window? Are we counting those who use scrap wood in the shop, but only after the robot has been bagged? What if the second robot doesn't have electronics, but they've mocked up a new arm on an immobile frame? Or what if the team continues building new appendages without a base?
My point is, we've got enough potential variables here and zero data aside from CD's poll as far as "second robots" are concerned, and even that has many different definitions. I've got a gut feel and an opinion myself, but I am sure everyone else does, too. I think the real question for FIRST is: how many teams put down the tools completely until their event? I'm not talking just CAD, I mean teams that have any physical work going on whatsoever.
If that number proves to be the overwhelming majority, what is lost by giving them the
opportunity (but again, NOT the
obligation) to continue building until their first competition and on throughout the FIRST season?
And with that question, we've once again
returned to this thread.