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Originally Posted by Dave Campbell
Let me preceed this post with how much admiration I have for Team 111, and all FIRST teams. Your integrity is not in question here. We (1038) would love to build a second machine, and might do so this year.
This post brings to question the shipping deadline. Does the FIRST "Out-of-hands" deadline mean that we ship the robot and ALL other work ceases? Or can we continue to improve the machine and program after the deadline? I know we don't make spares, or changes after the ship date, but how does driver / programming practice fit in? I have always interpreted the rules to mean we ship, cease ALL work, and pick up again on the practice day of our first regional.
Does the work (driving practice, strategy, machine design / analysis) continue after the shipping deadline? If so, I would think that a second machine would allow teams to work in that area outside of the ship deadline and far from "gracious professionalism." If not, a second machine would be an excellent tool to use to train drivers during the build season while the final product is being manufactured.
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FIRST was very clear last year that we were allowed to work on the autonomous programming after the robot shipped. In fact, they allowed teams to keep the operator interface (i.e. it didn't have to ship with the robot) so teams could work on programming while the main robot was away. This was stated clearly in the rules.
Along this same line, there is (I should say was) no rule prohibiting a second machine for driver practice, nor is it against gracious professionalism to have a second machine. Many teams have been doing it for years.
There is no way for FIRST to say that ALL work on your robot must stop after it ships. FIRST can say that you can't manufacture new systems and bring them to a competition (this is reasonable), but there's no way they can say that you can't continue development (and developing new ideas); this is like saying that you are not allowed to think or be creative, which is like asking someone not to breath or sleep. People are always going to brainstorm new ways to win with strategy or robot changes that they can make once they get to the competition - it's only natural.
As for our team - I always push for a second robot. It rarely happens, but I'm hoping to do it this year. The only year we did it was 2002, and we had a pretty good year that year.
-Chris