Posted by Mike Soukup at 2/3/2001 12:12 PM EST
Engineer on team #111, Wildstang, from Rolling Meadows & Wheeling and Motorola.
In Reply to: Point...
Posted by Jessica Boucher on 2/3/2001 10:29 AM EST:
Lora, I fully agree with you that there should be a set standard that everyone building a scouting system should follow. But I agree more with Jessica's statement that there isn't enough time. Since everyone is probably well on their way to developing their own excellent system, it's not realistic to have them start over and follow a standard. Plus if you just look around any industry, it takes months, even years for a bunch of companies to agree to a standard (unless you're microsoft and you just tell people what the standard is, and say "follow it or die," but that's a discussion for another time
If the FIRST community truly wants to set a standard for scouting systems to follow, it should be discussed in the fall, not the winter/spring. From working with the SOAP team and through development here at Motorola, I know how hard collaboration can be between people who aren't at the same location. It takes a lot of time and a lot of extra effort.
For this year, I think teams should go ahead and share data between themselves if they can work it out. Heck, it doesn't have to be on the computer, do it the old fashioned way by trading sheets of paper. We'll all benefit from that. But as for a computer standard, I fear it's too late in the game to try to hammer one out. As for next year, I'll talk to anyone who wants to set a standard or form an alliance.
Jessica, feel free to continue giving your opinion. I wasn't offended by anything you've said so far.
Mike (who is also trying not to offend anyone)