Warning!! LONG POST!!! As I started to really think about this, I realized that I was going on way too long. I apologize, but I was really just capturing my thoughts about this, and it turned into a stream-of-consciousness ramble.
First, let's consider a few heuristics that may factor into the current rules:
- Many corporations that have supported long-term FIRST teams have expressed concerns about changes in the FIRST program that have moved it from a 6-week-long-"lets-build-a-robot" activity to a nearly year-round program. For those companies that donate their employees time to participate, this can add up to a considerable cost. This can be a major consideration when they contemplate future involvement. FIRST is trying to ensure that a 6-week corporate commitment to the build season really means 6 weeks.
- The vast majority of teams (>90%) do not have access to anything near state-of-the-art manufacturing capabilities. Many teams don't even have a lathe or milling machine. Teams with access to advanced facilities already have a competitive advantage. Allowing those teams to utilize their facilities to manufacture parts after the ship date just results in widening the competitive gap between the "haves" and "have-nots."
- Several teams are now outfitting mobile machine shops and using them to their advantage to build new parts (as well as replacements) at competition events. This is a great capability! But it also increases the "have/have-not gap," potentially introduces additional liability issues, promotes hoarding of resources, and subtly urges more teams to sink money into similar mobile facilities to "keep up with the Jones'" and remain competitive.
- Whether we want to admit it or not, some very small number of teams cheat. They manufacture parts of their machines after the ship date, bring them to competition events, and bolt them on as "replacements." Rules in past years have been fuzzy enough that they can justify it in their own minds. FIRST needed to clean up the wording, and make it more restrictive, to limit this practice as much as possible.
- For years, FIRST has been saying "make sure your robots are ROBUST!" but most teams have never taken them seriously. The answer has always been "if it breaks, we will just knock out a replacement and slap it on." At a fundamental level, this is not a good philosophy, and not good engineering practice. Is this how we are teaching our students to think?
So now let's try to understand what the rule really says:
- You can manufacture all the spare parts you want - just make sure that you build them all during the 6-week build period. When the ship date arrives, that means put all your tools down, no more construction is allowed. Period. No exceptions. When the ship date comes, build season is over. Everyone go home and get some rest before the competition season begins.
- You can assemble all the spares into as many sub-assemblies as you want, as long as they are completed before the ship date and put in the crate with your robot. There are no limits on this.
- If you are going to keep your spare parts after the ship date (ie. you will have access to potential parts of your robot after everyone else has shipped theirs off to the competition), then the parts must remain as "raw pieces" until you bring them to the competition site. No fair building or assembling parts after the ship date.
- At the competition site, you can build away to your heart's content. You can assemble the spare parts you bring with you into sub-assemblies and add them to your robot, make new assemblies, make upgrade parts, even make a whole new robot if you want. But you have to do it on-site in the pits or at facilities available to all teams. No sneaking off to "Crazy Willy's All-Night Machine Shop And Robot Emporium" around the corner that no one else knows about.
- Teams can still bring their mobile machine shops and set up camp in the parking lot. But the heart of the new rule is that if you are going to do that, you must be willing to share that resource with other teams as well (note: this does not mean that you have to let someone else use your machine tools - the liability issues would be overwhelming! - but it does mean that your machinists will make parts for other teams as well as your own). This promotes sharing of resources, is good sportsmanship, helps level the playing field, and builds inter-team relationships.
- Everyone is now really working on the same timeline, and with the same resources. The competition starts to get back to a place where the best teams are the ones with the most creative/innovative approaches, and not just the ones with the best/fanciest fabrication capabilities.
- Finally, the teams are going to be forced to take robustness seriously. If a robot design hinges on "whizz-bang widget XX" that requires a 6-axis CNC machine to manufacture, then maybe the team needs to re-think their design. Robustness counts! Serviceability matters! Simplicity is important! Our robot designs should virtually SHOUT OUT these concepts. Applied properly, this rule will help get us there.
Personally, I like where this rule puts us all (and, no, I didn't write it!!
).
-dave
p.s. but, of course, I could be entirely wrong (at least that is what Tony Norman keeps telling me
)