I'm not normally one to complain but lately it seems that FIRST is giving all of us more reasons to do just that. My hope is that this latest misstep leads FIRST to come up with a systemic solution that will begin to address the underlying issues that Paul and others have referenced in this thread.
I hate to admit it but I did not read Update 16 until I was told about it at the Wisconsin Regional on Thursday. We were one of only a handful of teams who had a "machine shop" (band saw, drill press, sander/grinder) in our pits. The official machine shop was off site (minimum 30+ minutes for a part?? C'mon!) and we were doing our own work as well as work for other teams. I would venture to guess that we are much like the other teams who have simple machining capabilities in that we do more work for other teams than for our own. That is after all the spirit of FIRST, isn't it? Out of 52 teams at the event 22 were rookies and another 11 were only in their second year. This was definitely a regional heavily weighted by new teams. The ability to help these teams definitely contributed to their success. I can't imagine how things would have turned out had we not been able to lend them a hand. We all know that time is of the essence at these events and when literally seconds matter, many times it is critical to have the right tool for the job and sometimes that tool is a power tool.
At the Wisconsin Regional we were originally shut down on Thursday around mid-day. I was told about the update and spoke to two of the safety advisors, one in his first year with FIRST, the other in his second - neither had been on a team. They listened to my concerns and told me they would look into it. Clearly they knew of the rule but had no idea why it had been implemented. Later in the day I spoke with one of the event coordinators and was told there was a clarification to the rule that morning and we COULD use our machines.
Friday morning arrived and when our pit crew and mentors arrived at our pits, they were surprised (read as "quite concerned") to see five safety advisors standing by our pits. Once again we were shut down. They told our team FIRST had clarified the rule that morning and had banned the machines once again. Again, I expressed my concerns about the logic of the decision and again, they had no clear explanation as to why. About mid-day I was told we could set our power tools back up again. Huh??!!
My initial concern was over the fact that FIRST had made the decision in the first place with, as others have pointed out, NO explanation. For the life of me I could not come to a logical conclusion as to why. Are bench tools really more dangerous? Don't they trust us to do the right/safe thing? Are we drawing too much current at the venue? Are they doing this in the name of a “level playing field”? I just couldn't see it.
After all the waffling on the rule it was clear to me that the decision was made with little thought as to the consequences and no input from teams. This is the latest in a disturbing trend of decisions and rulings that appear to disregard the value of input from teams. The post-season forums to discuss how things went during the build and competitions are a step in the right direction but they have been hosting those for quite some time. FIRST needs some team representation in the decision making process they are using. Take some of the more outstanding, respected mentors - Copioli, Baker, Hughes, Patton, Olivera, Skierkiewicz, Green, Kanagasabapathy, etc. - and create a sounding board of mentors in the trenches who can provide feedback before these decisions are released to the entire FIRST community.
Our team has already discussed the "why's" of the power tools decision and are already discussing ways to address the problem but without knowing definitively why FIRST made the decision it is difficult for us to come up with details for potential solutions.
I am anxious to hear the explanation.
Sean
p.s. Paul - please reconsider. Or call me when you come up with something new!
