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Originally Posted by Paul Copioli
Yes Joe, the rules are the rules, but if the rules get so ridiculous some of us may choose not to play anymore and that is the bigger shame.
I am extremely fed up with rules that WILL HURT ROBOT performance for many teams and the robots will not be attractive for people outside of FIRST. This is the last front that we, the FIRST community, are failing at ... miserably. We must do things to make the robots perform great right out of the shoot. A little bit of debug time not restricted by two five hour windows (why can't it be five 2 hour windows?) will not hurt anyone or anything.
Two five hour windows that have to be fit in before Friday is ridiculous for a team with mentors who work until 5 or 6 every night.
I have to tell you I will be very vocal about these arbitrary rules after the season is over.
-Paul
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Paul,
I agree with you on many things.
I especially agree that Spectator Friendliness has been a significant weaknesse of past FIRST competitions and that Spectator Friendliness is one of the main keys to FIRST accomplishing its goals.
In some respects, I believe FIRST has given up this idea.
I think at one time, the vision was that we only needed FIRST teams to survive on their own for a few more years because eventually the NCRA (National Competitive Robotics Association) would fund March Madness out of the TV proceeds much like NCAA Basketball teams live off TV funding.
But... ...for good or ill, FIRST has decided that it is in it for the long haul.
To that end, they are trying to listen to sponsors and participants that tell them that they are being killed by escallating costs due to the expanding season, duplicate robots, rules that turn the 6 week build time into 4 months and so on.
The rules are trying to address that. We can talk about what it means to teams and to the game play etc. but I think they are trying to address an important issue.
We all have ideas as to how to improve the system. I think that FIRST has shown itself to be a responsive organization (responsive does not mean perfect).
In the mean time, I am hopeful for an exciting, spectator friendly game this year.
Joe J.
P.S. I am not an insider with respect to FIRST. I have had no conversations about this topic with official or semi-official FIRST folk. I am just using my eyes and ears and brain to form opinions. The above message assigns motiviations to FIRST as though I was a fly on the wall at meetings where this topic was discussed. This is certainly not the case. JJ