[sgreco]

Originally Posted by BurtGummer

Well, being a rookie team, it was our first year in Atlanta.

But once again I will bring up the topic of a rookie team. From this weekend, I see FIRST defining a rookie team as a team with a number from 2700ish to 3100ish. AKA a number chosen this year. So I have a question. Is team 2753 a rookie team who has never participated in FIRST? What about 3091? 2753 was almost exactly the same as 399, and 3091 sounds like several teams just recombined into one, making them a rookie team. Can anyone clarify this for me? If they are in fact rookies, who have never done FIRST before, then who built the robot? I can guarantee it wasn't the students. I am not saying that we should of won by an means......I would have been happy if any real rookie team won.

Second.....rules. First off, regionals need more control. We fit easily into the measuring box at the LA Regional, but somehow our robot grew 3/8 of an inch between then and Atlanta, and the frame was not bent. In fact, I cut off a piece that was a little too high on Thursday morning just because I didn't like it sticking up. It fit that way into the measuring box at the LA Regional, but after cutting it off, it didn't fit in the boxes at Atlanta. If you are going to be so specific about something, the equipment measuring it needs to be precise as well.

Wiring colors? I'll be honest, I had no idea because I didn't have the time to sit down and read a rule book, and other students assigned the task did not complete it. But with that aside, why does it matter what color a wire is? Gauge is of course understandable, but the color? I've been working with electrical 'stuff's for years. IMO, it's a rule that is not necessary. Rules are normally for controlling the robot entries from having extra advantages (Size, Weight). But wire color? Come on. Don't pull the safety card on this either. Knowing a wire is ground or hot shouldn't decide how you work with it. You treat every wire like it's hot, just like you always treat a gun like it's loaded. On top of that, our wire coding was not correct at the LA Regional either, but none of the inspectors noticed. It would definitely help if we knew about it then, rather than at the Championships.

Third. Mentor involvement. Some of the teams I see have robots that you just KNOW that high school students didn't build, because when you go to the pits, you see a mentor fixing it, not a student. If your students are not capable of building a high caliber robot, then don't. Build a kitbot. They'll get more experience out of building that than some other complex robot. When awards were given out at the individual divisions, I saw several teams with parents/mentors getting handed the awards, with the students following behind them.

Match scheduling. If you want people to 'watch the monitors' make them visible! Being next to FTC, the only thing we saw was FTC. Being 8 minutes ahead of schedule, in my opinion, is unacceptable. If times are given out to the minute, then that schedule should be stuck to. Sure, fall behind, but getting ahead? We had to fix a bent frame from a match right before, which took A LOT of work, and then we show up at the field 8 minutes early and the match had already started.

Overall, I see a lot of unnecessary control in places, and not enough/no control in many others. I agree on several other things in this thread, like G14 and the control that human players had. Having a good human player could easily win the match for you, not the robot. But I won't elaborate that stuff.

I will say that I am glad I went to Atlanta and had the opportunity to experience it, because it will be much harder to get there after our rookie year. It had the fun parts.....and it had the parts that made me steaming mad. Some improvements can definitely be made though.

A couple comments.

I'm not going to claim that I know anything about 3091, but it sounded like in the awards that the kids came from different towns, not different prexisting teams. (Correct me if I'm wrong).

As for 2753 and 399, they are from completely opposite sides of the country. The fact that their designs are similer seems random to me. It is very possible for rookies to dominate. 2753 is a good example of this. It doesn't mean they aren't really rookies, it just means that they are good. My team's most successful competitive year was our rookie year. All I'm saying is, just because a rookie is really good, doesn't mean they aren't really rookies.

About the mentor involvement. Mentors are crucial. Students need to work to learn, but they need mentors. Kids can also learn by watching mentors do things. (I'm not advocating it, it still teaches kids). Part of the real world is designing things and sending them off to be made. I'll be completely honest, my team had a student and mentor designed swerve drive, we sent away the CAD models and had the parts machined for us, it's just the way it is. I may not have operated a manual mill to make the parts, but I learned about 4-axis CNC machines, which in many ways can be just as valuable. Even if you don't make all the parts on the robot, you can make them for other things like prototypes. I learn just as much from prototypes on manual machines as I do from the computer made final product. Even though the final product is professonally made, it doesn't mean I didn't learn a ton of things along the way. Mentors shouldn't do everything, but sometimes they need to do certain things. FIRST is about learning and if kids are doing everything themselves, then they likely aren't learning as much as they could be.

About the rules. If you aren't happy with the rules of inspection, specifically the box, go out and prove them wrong. In Boston last year, my team's robot didn't fit in the box, we got out a measuring tape and showed them that their box was actually 3/8 of an inch too small. We passed inspection. If in fact somehow your robot did grow, and they have an accurately sized box, then that's something you have to find a way to deal with. In the real world, if they tell you to make a 4 foot wide robot and you make 4 feet and 1/8 of an inch, you get fired, if it's 4 feet, you get a raise. The rule book may be long, but someone has to read it. Someone on my team always reads the entire book each year just ensure that we know what we are doing. It's just one of the things that you have to do. All of these things are learning experiences, and honestly, there isn't a better place to learn than FIRST.