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Originally Posted by Kims Robot
My proposal, instead of limiting snap on parts, would be for teams to be forced to return to the $450 spending limit, so if you wanted to buy two transmissions for $200 each, you only had $50 left to spend on the rest of your robot, and you couldnt buy the snap-in arm(Besides, with so many teams sharing designs now, you dont really have to design your own transmission or arm, or roller anyway, you can just look it up on CD, and manufacture it yourself). The smaller spending limit is more like real engineering, and is a compromise between the teams who dont have sophisticated design ability, and the teams who have unlimited spending capacity. My guess is that there are a lot of rookie teams this year who cant afford to spend the $3500 on the robot anyway.
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Just a quick reminder to the new teams out there that were not around when we used to have limitations as silly as 300 or 500 dollars. You may sit here and think, hey that will level the playing field,
well think again! Back in 1999 and 2000 I saw robots that were every bit as complex and expensive as anything I have seen lately and they easily met the rules of the time. The low dollar amount ONLY hurts teams with low resources, THATS IT. For $300 I can buy almost unlimited raw stock and have it machined, water-jet, wire EDM's, laser cut you name it all in house and the total expenditure by the team was under $300. Back then, if gears and sprockets cost too much to buy, you made them out of any material you want. Look at the pictures in the gallery of the early Chief Delphi, Wildstang, Technocats robots and you will change your mind about what the $300 limit really means. What it means is that unless you have resources you are out of luck. With a high limit you can now get transmissions like the one from Andy that will rival what the high dollar teams will have regardless of the dollar limit for a realistic cost.
I am really hoping that people will come around to what Andy & Mark are doing here. They have been a part of FIRST since the beginning and know as well as anyone what it takes to be competitive. I have built MANY transmissions for FIRST and I would be surprised if they were making much if any money on these. If we had to send the machining outside to somewhere I estimate that we would probably be paying well over $1500 for our transmissions. Lucky for us we have a machine shop in the lab and a machinist who can show us how to use the machines. FIRST doesn't really include everything you need to be competitive and build a box. They give you some wheels, some aluminum tube, and some motors. For every team that I have been able to talk to, FIRST was overwhelming for their rookie year. Most teams have no concept of time management for the entire build season. And while no one seems to want to admit it, having a robot that can't even move for every match not only is a downer for the entire robot team but also for your alliance partners. In my mind I don't feel good teaching my students about designing and building a robot yet in the real world not being able to also show them the results. I am not even the least bit concerned if someone wants to build an off the shelf chassis or drive system, it is almost already happening. People like Andy have posted their engineering prints for others to use in their entirety. Programmers have posted their whole code for complex movements. I remember there were something like 13 teams last year that had the identical drive base, one that was robust and actually worked. This particular base gave every team out there good competition which is what I think FIRST is about.
In my engineering world I also believe that this should be real world, that kids should learn, but I also believe that my team should at least have a fighting chance out on the field. This year my team won't be buying a transmission from Andy-Mark
(Sorry Andy) but I will without a doubt make sure that any team I am helping that either can't make their own or doesn't have the time looks at this and strongly considers it as an option, as should your teams.