Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave Flowerday
So how does that work in the other direction? We lost almost an hour at BMR due to the failure of FMS and the field. Why should 5,000 people have to wait for that to get fixed?
|
Unfortunately this fits the analogy pretty well. If you miss the plane, it's your problem, but if the plane is late everyone gets to wait around for it. Here's the thing though, do we really want to be comparing ourselves to an industry with such low customer satisfaction?
Quote:
|
I don't really think teaching teams hard lessons is FIRST's big picture. Their "big picture" is inspiring students and getting them interested in science and technology. Sitting on the side of the field with a non-functioning robot is not inspiring and makes the technology look error-prone and frustrating. I believe IFI understood this well and that's why they had someone at every event making sure that every robot was linked up and ready to go for each match. The fact that they switched to a new system takes forever to link up is a decision FIRST made that they should have to live with, but they seem to be shifting the burden of this decision to the teams who had no input when the decision was made.
|
I completely agree. In the 3 events I have been at in my previous two years I do not recall a single match starting with robots not linked with the field. In fact I remember the exact opposite, every effort was made to get a team linked with the field before the match started. If teams were allowed to go on to the field and turn their robots on in previous years I definitely think they should be able to go plug in their radio this year.
FIRST made the decision to change to a control system that takes longer to sync and FIRST made the decision to have a game with a long field reset time. The burdens that these two things place on the schedule should not be passed on to teams unless absolutely necessary.
Does starting a match without a team tech them a lesson about attention to detail? Probably. Does it inspire them? Probably not. As much as this competition "isn't about the robots", the robots are what inspire the students. Matches where your robot doesn't move aren't fun or inspiring for the drivers, the coach, or the parents and students in the stands. We should be doing everything we can to get every robot moving in every match.