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  #91   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 17-02-2004, 02:10
robomania robomania is offline
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Re: Robot Collaboration

*this is my opinion and does not represent team 60 as a whole*

I was a driver last year for team 60 and also our alliance team stratagist. I heard alot about our team both negative and positive because of this. I understand that this may seem unfair to alot of people but our intention was never to try to gain any sort of unfair advantage. Yes we are looking for an advantage but so is every other team and this did not seem unfair to us. I am not saying that we are the almighty judges of what is right or wrong but if we felt it was wrong we wouldn't have done it. I agree that FIRST does need to make a ruling that is more clear, not because i think we are wrong but becasue this is way to much drama to have. I have heard from other teams that we constantly try to twist the rules and make them what we want but that is not true. We may go into grey areas but challenging something is the only way to make it better. We do not go out each year trying to think of ways to piss off other teams as i have also heard. To the best of my knowledge we have never turned down a request for help( i may be wrong because this is only my second year). As mentioned earlier we are mentoring 2 robotics teams as well as 8 lego leauge teams and have given away drawings to teams and any other way we can help. Personally i think if we can make every team as good as we try to be then that makes the competition all that much more fun and competitive. As far as maching issues I can guarantee that all parts were made by students becasue we have to make schedules becasue so many of us want to build as much as possible.

i don't know if this made any sense to many people but these are just random thoughts i was having about this topic. sorry for the spelling but i am really bad at it. math is more of my strong point.
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Unread 17-02-2004, 02:25
robomania robomania is offline
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Re: Robot Collaboration

something else i saw in another post although i don't think may people saw it.
what if you had divisions for FIRST like you do in High School Sports (5A, 4A and so on) the only problems i see with this is that i don't think there are enough teams to split it up much plus it might break down relationships with other teams since they might be in a different division. It would also lead to teams thinking they are better or worse then others.

the point of this post in this thread is that it would solve the rookie part of this argument
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Unread 17-02-2004, 02:28
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Re: Robot Collaboration

Collaboration does not necessarily deny competition. Say we wanted to go to Mars. We could compete with kingman, each of us trying to get there first. Sure, at least one of us would get there. But what if we teamed up, to achieve our common goal even faster? This is all our relationship is. Two teams, one goal - creation of not only a good robot, but maybe more importantly, life lessons in teamwork and communication.
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Unread 17-02-2004, 02:33
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Re: Robot Collaboration

Quote:
Originally Posted by Amanda M

Quote:
Originally Posted by KenWittlief
this is the section of the rulebook that is going to be the problem for these two teams, and I dont see anything grey about it:

5.2.5 Design and Build Rules
Ken, will you exlpain to me how this is going to be an issue... I am in need of a little clafirication.

And I would like to say the following. Please don't hold any of it against, me I'm not trying to be rude.

...

As I said before, do not think less of me. This is my third year on this team, and I have been educated this year, far more than the last two combined.
Putting all other issues aside, I think KenW is just trying to address the issue of the letter of the rule, and that is, the robot can only use parts build by your own team, and parts that isn't built by your own team is limited by the $3500 rule. So, it is OK if you use parts not build by your own team, as long as they are within the $3500 limit. Otherwise it is against the rules.

I have a feeling that it would've been ok if your two team designed the robot together, but manufactured it separately. After all, people use other's designs all the time. It is a part of engineering. Just look at so many teams benefiting from technokat's transmission design. But when another team is building some part of your robot for you, then it is not your work. What's made by Bellarmine is Bellarmine's work, and what's made by Kingman is Kingman's work. No matter how strong the partnership is, you are still 2 teams entering the competition under two names. But FIRST didn't say that's not allowed, they addressed this with the $3500 rule. It is ok to use parts made by others as long as you count the cost of making it. But I think that's FIRST's call. I have a feeling they haven’t considered this when they wrote the rule.

I have been there all the years when Kingman's robot designs were challenged every year. And from time to time, your team suffer not because a decision was made on the issue, but the fact that FIRST change their ruling from events to events. That is something I do not wish to see happening this year. Your team deserves a fair review and a fair decision. And you deserve that decision at ALL events. In fact, I would recommend your team talk to FIRST about this, ask them to make a decision, and make sure ALL the FIRST staffs running the regionals you are going to KNOW that decision. And make sure you get a FINAL decision from FIRST so they won’t change it.


And Amanda, I think no one who has read this thread will think less of you, or hold anything against you. You have done a tremendous job representing your team and its image. You were very well spoken in your post, and because of that, the posts I've seen in this thread is much more level-headed and thought through than most I've seen in the past. Keep up the good work. It is under these stressful times when you should keep a leveled head at all time. Be profoundly understanding of other’s point of view, but stand your ground if you believe it’s a right one. Good luck with the challenges ahead of you and your team.
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Unread 17-02-2004, 02:55
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Re: Robot Collaboration

I hate to be an i told you so but it is apparent to me it has occurred once again that hopefully it won't turn out for the worse as in truck town thunder's case.....someone asked why do you or do you not share your design during the build season?.....this thread case & point....

as far as the design sharing goes i like it, identical robot production im not completely for....frankly im not interested in the communication aspect of it....i communicate fine with heatwave and other teams in florida bouncing ideas off them and vice versa....i don't go and outsource my work to heatwave or anyone else. I don't believe anyone on either of the two teams was thinking of the 3500 limit in the manner described on this thread because that rule operates in such a grey area, but i also do not believe they were trying to subvert any of the rules....one or two subsystem collaboration i see as ok, but the robots are twins (and please don't hand me that story about programming and minor modification you contradict yourself by saying if one wins a design award the other team takes pride in it...they are either seperate designs or the same, in this situation you can't have it both ways or you are just lying to yourself)

great idea, but maybe taken a bit too far....hopefully this can be allowed in this one particular case (so that these teams that did put a good # of hours of work into this can compete), but FIRST should wiegh in on it (on either side) for future situations....you want to ask yourself should a sponsor be allowed to dump super machining time into their robots & make 16 chief delphis therefore increasing their overall chances of winning? i don't think so, but that is up to FIRST to decide

basically i sum it all up this way: this year let this go, but it should be addressed for the future situations and make a more clear defintion of sponsor so there is no confusion (do the have to be in the name? do they have to be on the shirt? are they a sponsor if they give you a huge discount on their stuff?)
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Unread 17-02-2004, 03:00
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Re: Robot Collaboration

I wish people would stop picking on "celebrety" teams

I KNOW for a fact that if i wanted to i could go out and find something on most of the teams, no matter how little this thing would be, and start a thread just like this one on it! But I dont because it dont want to HURT other teams. People who bash 60 and 254 in this tread (or any other team for that matter) WANT to HURT those teams. I dont think thats graciously profecional.


P.S. if you guys want other teams to post teasers (or anything else about thier bots) in the future, you should seriously re think what you are doing here. Remember some thing CAN NOT be undone!
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Unread 17-02-2004, 03:06
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Re: Robot Collaboration

"All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Unread 17-02-2004, 03:52
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Lightbulb Re: Robot Collaboration

There's one thing that has really irked me about this whole concept.

We don't know what official stance FIRST will take, because nobody from either team took a few minutes to ask some simple questions on the FIRST Q&A at the start of the season.

There's been controversey on rulings in the past, but since this situation involves finances, sponsorship, and some important definitions (NOT game strategy) it's a completely different ball game from what we've seen before.

Team members openly admitted that they knew that there would be critics... so I ask, why wouldn't you have a long list of Q&A's ready to fire back, showing what you did was completely within the rules?

Instead, FIRST is a really tough bind, and these teams need to potentially ask for forgiveness instead of ask for permission.

[edit /irresponsibility]

FIRST doesn't like to make rulings specifically because people ventured into a grey area without asking. This is why the Q&A system was set up, so that prompt answers could be read by all teams to both common and obscure, "grey area" questions.

This is OBVIOUSLY a grey area.

I hope I'm wrong, and a team leader will post a written ruling tomorrow from FIRST (dated 4 weeks ago) giving you the thumbs up to do this. If so, I sincerely have no qualms.

However, if some team leaders have risked the entire season for not one but two teams on this collaboration without asking FIRST the appropriate questions, I give my deepest sympathy to all of the students that may end up with a ruined season. I hope it won't come to that. It looks like a lot of people have worked long and hard, and it would be a shame if FIRST, out of fairness to all teams, had to make a ruling that was unexpected.

However, this situation should be ruled as though this question was asked before the season started. The idea of bending the rules and definitions because something has "already been done" is fundamentally unfair to all other FIRST teams.

Just my two cents,

Matt
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Last edited by Matt Adams : 17-02-2004 at 10:18.
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Unread 17-02-2004, 04:03
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Re: Robot Collaboration

For the most part, we've stayed out of this discussion for a couple reasons:

1. Because while others make assumptions - we know what we we've done, we know how hard we work and how much we contribute to the FIRST community
2. Because all we are "guilty" of is hiding nothing, sharing our partnership, and sharing our resources with as many FIRST teams as we can


Many are making assumptions without any factual understanding to back up their claims. So let us try to provide some background info (our apologies for the length, as this may be long because it’s a combination of thoughts many of our team members share, and we don't want to make any personal attacks or offend anyone)

Our team (254) was the smallest team in the country in 1999, had no funds, no facility to build, and no power tools. I wasn't on the team then (this is my third year), but I have learned our history and am proud of it. It has taken our team 6 very hard years to secure the facility and resources we have. Each year we have gotten a little bigger, a little more experience, and secured some more resources. We currently have just one engineer on our team (that's right - one), two college students (who are alumni and have been on our team for 4 years), two teachers who help organize the team but have basically no robot knowledge (Sorry Mr. Urhausen and Mr. Gonzalez), and one machinist who volunteers to help us, and our engineers wife who gives a lot of time to help us. No adult on our team can program, no adult helps our animation team, our website team is entirely students, and our students work endlessly to build our robot.

Kingman (60) has no engineers. They have two machinists (Glenn and George), one teacher, a sheriff, and I think one other mentor with I think a Business degree if I remember correctly. They have 15-20 students who work with their mentors to build and program the robot each year. What's Kingman guilty of? Powder Coating their robot and making it look great each year - that's all. And because they do, some teams like to assume they have 5-10 engineers and that Ford builds their robot. When in reality, that team works hard each year, their students are as involved as most students on any FIRST team, their students learn a tremendous amount from just a couple dedicated mentors, and worst of all - does anyone reading this think that any team who has criticized Kingman over the years would themselves turn down a sponsor who offered to powder coat their robot once they built it? Of course not, we'd all love to do it - and Kingman inspired us to go out and find a local company to help us powder coat our robot this year.

How many of you can name well known "powerhouse" teams who have 10-20 mentors and engineers? How many of you can name many "powerhouse" teams who have professional programmers who do all or most of their programming? How many of you can name "powerhouse" teams who have much more experience than 60 or 254, and until the last couple years always had slicker looking robots than either of them? Even working together, the resources of 60 and 254 don't even come close to the resources of many other teams in FIRST. You've never seen us criticize those teams - instead we look at them as model teams - we're happy for them that they have so much support and hope they inspire other teams to continue to build their programs stronger. We're proud of the fact that we started at the "bottom" (I've heard stories about how intimidated and overwhelmed our team, with $6k and no tools, was when they saw the teams from Delphi, Motorola, and GM in 1999 and 2000 - how they were convinced there was no way they could ever compete with those teams. Thankfully they didn't whine about it, give up, quit, or stop working hard - or myself and my friends might not have a team to participate on right now). And we're proud that we've proven teams can build each year, get stronger each year, and compete with low or high resource teams no matter where they may fall in the spectrum.

Everyone is acting like this is some kind of guarantee that a better robot is going to be built. Deep inside, I think everyone knows that no unbeatable robot can be built this year – that the winning teams are going to need great strategy, great driving, good human players, great alliance partners, and a little or a lot of luck – as always. Sometimes a collaboration of teams may help each other do better, sometimes they may not – it’s not like there’s any guarantee. Normally no one knows for sure which ideas will be the best, and it’s very possible (if not probable – like every year) that we will realize a month from now that one of the ideas our team had but discarded might have been better.

Some talk about how teams shouldn't venture into that 'grey area'. But isn't that how progress is gained? By venturing into uncharted territory and pushing the envelope? We know that something like this has never been done, and we expected this to be an innovative test which many would be curious to see how it worked out. However, we are confident that FIRST will agree that this type of collaboration is in line with the ideals of the organization. Our leaders have done nothing, and never would, put our season or our team at any "risk" - and our teams are in no "danger" as you put it. There's no rule against it, it's that simple. How many times have Dean and Woody encouraged teams to work together and share ideas?

Our team has been very blessed to do well every year – our team has won at least one Regional all five years we’ve been in FIRST and has made the Championship playoffs each year, and done well. Kingman has done pretty much just as well.
For this kind of success, a number of things have to happen – the teams have to be good, have to build good robots, have to work well with other teams, need to have good partners, and need to have a little luck. Some years our team had good robots – but in every event we enter we know that the “odds” are that we won’t win and that all those things have to happen for us even to have a chance. The “odds” are that neither of our teams will win an event this year – but even if we do, is anyone really going to claim it was because we worked together? In the best possible world, all we could hope for it to do “as well” as we have done totally alone not working together – we don’t have any “need” to work together, we decided we wanted to. Why can’t people get that? So if/when we lose events this year, please give credit to those teams who beat us – they would have beat us with or without our partnership with Kingman, and they deserve the credit. And if our team wins an event, we will be proud that our drivers and strategists performed so well, and if 60 wins we’ll cheer for them because we’re happy for them and because they are good people. If anyone thinks Kingman couldn’t or wouldn’t have won without us, or the other way around, then they need to look at the past 5 years to be proven wrong.

Like Dave Lavery has said, please stop being lawyers and start building robots. Our teams decided this partnership months ago. We made no attempts to hide it – one of our students and a 60 mentor even traveled all the way to LA in September to show off the drive system we jointly designed and built over the summer – showing over 30 teams and 300 FIRST people everything (transmissions, gears, plans). We tested the robot at the Cal Games in October and even named the team “Bionic Poofs” so everyone knew our teams were working together. Was Laron a 254 sponsor last year or NASA Ames a 60 sponsor last year? No. But we both agreed to sponsor the other team months ago, and have had three common sponsors this entire year. Their info is on our website (going up this week – been totally redesigned by our web students) and Laron was already listed as a sponsor our t-shirts already being printed. So if anyone thinks either of our teams didn’t make our intentions, plans, and sponsorships crystal clear and totally within the FIRST rules way before this sad thread started, please know that any such accusation or hint is quite untrue.

Our team has mentored rookie teams 4 of the past 6 years. We have provided workshops at the WRRF sessions for hundreds of participants. We helped start the Cal Games and help support it each year. We open our facility up to ANY teams in the area who wish to come use it. We have provided the majority of the volunteers for two FLL tournaments in San Jose and Northern California the past few years. We hold a pre ship scrimmage on our field each year and spend the weekend helping any local team in need to get their robot running. Last year, our team found out that the Sacramento Regional would not have a machine shop. We decided not to attend a third regional (Arizona) and decided to spend our funds to build a mobile shop in a trailer – which we didn’t build until the week AFTER we had shipped our robot. We took that trailer to Sacramento, San Jose, and the Championship (when FIRST said they needed more machine shop help) and made almost 300 repairs on robots – including the 3 that beat us in Sacramento. And we’re going to do it again this year instead of going to a third regional. Do we have to help all the teams we do? No. Do we have to spend a big portion of our budget supporting and helping other teams in FIRST who aren’t as fortunate as us? No. We do it because we want to. We do it because our team knows how hard it’s been for us to get those resources and we want to share them. We do it because other teams have set great examples and showed us how special it is when teams help each other and work together. We do it because our mentors have probably been brainwashed by Dean and Woody and have convinced us that we should feel good about helping others have a good experience, even though we know we could have built better robots if we put all our resources into just our own team.

From what I know, Glenn on Kingman goes to LA to give workshops to all the Southern California teams each year. Kingman created an incredible fundraising support packet which they made available to allFIRST teams on their website and also gave workshops to Arizona teams. Kingman provides the entire machine shop for the Arizona Regional for free – and they’re over two hours away – they drive the machines there at Laron’s cost and not the Regionals. And some people have implied that our team or Kingman should share some of their resources with other teams?

What’s the result of some of these posts – veteran teams should only help other teams “a little”, but not enough to help keep compete at the same level? We should just give little pieces of info and assistance to teams, but always hold back key thoughts and knowledge so that we are guaranteed to be better? Sorry, we don’t feel that way, that’s just our opinion. Our engineer has mentioned how impressed he was that Team 45 shared their innovative transmission with other teams and even offered to give/make the transmissions for some teams – we were impressed they would share ideas with everyone and help others get better. We were impressed that some of the “swerve” teams helped some teams create a “swerve” bot last year, even though they wouldn’t make much of the information available to everyone. At least they helped some teams – better than none.
Is anyone criticizing those teams who go to four or five events, when they could be spending some of those extra funds to help teams in need? Anyone criticizing the teams who have 10-20 engineers and professional programmers doing a majority of their work when they could be spreading the support out to a number of local teams or they could be helping to recruit and start rookie teams so more students could experience FIRST?

We don’t criticize any of those teams, because it doesn’t matter – they do what’s best for their team. If we decide to help others, that’s our choice. Our few mentors have taught us that we can only control what our team decides to do, that worrying/whining about what other teams do and if they have more money or engineers than us doesn’t change our situation or make our robot get build any quicker. We try our best each year, and at the same time have decided that we should do whatever we can to make our team successful, share our resources with other teams, and help as many other teams as we can – basically, we look at FIRST as constantly “raising the bar” on us, and we try to accept the challenge do the best we can to help us and other teams.

It is disappointing that both teams have had to defend ourselves so much. If every so called “powerhouse” team in FIRST shared their ideas, their resources, or their experience as much as our teams do – there would be few, if any, struggling teams in FIRST. We don’t go around posting all we do for other teams – until know we’ve always let our actions speak for ourselves. What’s really sad, is that it sounds like many teams will actually be rooting for our teams to “lose” just because we work together, share ideas and resources, and built a mutual respect and friendship.

For what it’s worth – all we do is try our best, and when we get beat we congratulate the other team and are happy for them, as we know how much work everyone puts into their team. We don’t (and won’t) root against any other team, regardless of it you criticize us or not. If we did, then we wouldn’t have learned a thing from being in FIRST. No matter what, remember this…you can always bring your robot to our mobile shops any time, and we will always work our butts off to repair your bots, assist your teams, or donate spare parts. If you would never help our team if we needed it and your team ever needs help, whether you like us or not, come by our pit area, and we’ll help your team in any way we can. And even though we shouldn’t speak for them, we’re sure Kingman feels the same way and would help your team also.

We wish you all the best with your robots and hope you all have a great season.

Last edited by phrozen solyd : 17-02-2004 at 05:11.
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Unread 17-02-2004, 04:47
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Re: Robot Collaboration

OK people. Let's just settle this with a classic Drinks on me on Friday night. I will buy each of you in this thread a drink when I see you at competition.

Oh wait, I forgot poor college students cannot afford drinks for 200 people. ^^; I guess I just won't show up to any this year then.

All jokes aside, I want to thank all of you for your thoughts in the posts (especially the last one by phrozen solyd, even I have to bow down to the length of that post).

I have been chating with another moderator about this, and we are both concerned that this will turn into another flaming war like many other threads in the past. Originally I keep this open hopping people can have an intelligent, open discussion about this touchy issue. So far 90% of the posts are doing that, which is good. But we DO NOT want to see any more negative attitudes show up in this thread.

We've allowed a chance for both side to state their points. We ask that you maintain this level of quality in your future message if you want to discuss the issue further. Accusations and claims without evidences are not welcomed to this forum. Any point you are going to make please back it up with justification.

A big part of this discussion exist in the form of a debate. But that doesn't mean you should try to break each other's defense and tear their argument apart. Sometimes you just have to agree to disagree.

Let us keep our cool, and enjoy this program as much as possible. I have faith that all of you will make it all right again.

Also, it would be nice if off topic chats are kept in the form of PMs or e-mails. It's nice to talk about microwave and toasters, but I think we can do without them. Thanks :-).
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Unread 17-02-2004, 05:12
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Re: Robot Collaboration

Quote:
Originally Posted by KenWittlief
I hope these two teams work out some sort of agreement with FIRST, so they can compete - but I also home FIRST makes it clear that collaboration on this level is not in the spirit of FIRST.
Who are you to say what the spirit of FIRST is?

Why is everyone always out to undermine everyone else's hard work.

For everyone's information, last year at the Sacramento Regional, I remember seeing two robots that were darn near, if not exactly identical. NO ONE EVER SAID A WORD ABOUT THEM! Hmmm now why could this be? Oh yeah, now I remember, they were rookie teams (or second year, I don't remember) now why do people care about Kingman and Bellarmine? I think I know the answer to that too. Because they win, quite a bit, because they have lots of resources.

Many people view these two teams, and other teams like them as having TONS of money, and being totally engineer designed and built. Many people become jealous of what they think is happening, and instead of trying to get to the same point, just getting bitter and spiteful. I know for sure that that is not in the spirit of FIRST. Just because certain teams consistantly make good looking and good performing robots doesnt mean that theyre terrible people.

I know a few years ago I used to be jealous of teams like 60 and 254. Guess what. A few years ago I didn't know much at all, and I certainly wasn't aware of the true meaning of FIRST, afterall, it was just a robot, and theirs was way better than mine, right? I didnt know anyone on these teams either, and from my skewed perspective, they seemed as if they were the exact opposite of what they truly were.

Now, I know people on these teams, and what their teams truly are like, and it's nothing like I thought it was, or many of you may think it is. Looking back, I can't say Im proud of how I felt, and I wonder how I could have ever even felt that way.

So many people are unaware of anything a FIRST team does besides compete. Particularly in the case of "winning" teams, the winning tends to overshadow everything else that a team may do. I wont even cite the numerous different things that these two teams in particular do for the FIRST community. If anyone hasnt been convinced that their impressions are wrong, this certainly wont change that.

Dont you people have better things to do with your time in the middle of week six than sit here posting this crap about how this and that are illegal and not in the spirit of FIRST and blah blah blah. It seems like nowadays everyone looks for something to criticize before they look for a positive point. Stop being so jealous and strive to attain what you envy.

Stop picking on 60 and 254 because they win a lot. They dont pick on you now do they?

Cory
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Unread 17-02-2004, 06:35
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Re: Robot Collaboration

Because both 254 and 60 are small, but do manage to accomplish what they accomplish, shouldn't they be sharing this gift with struggling rookies who may be not-so-successful but in a similar situation?

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Unread 17-02-2004, 07:42
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Re: Robot Collaboration

Now I think it's time to close this thread. What more can be honestly said about this that is a new perspective?

Like it or not, all we can do now is wait and watch.
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Unread 17-02-2004, 08:52
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Re: Robot Collaboration

After much thinking, I've changed my position on this about 20 times. Litterally. If there is one thing I'm positive about, it's that I'm scared. I'm frightened. This is the first time in FIRST this has happened. I'm worried. A judgeing by FIRST can either be the beginning of something new, or the failure of FIRST. It can go either way.

Once I think more about it, I still don't like the so called 'colaboration', but I find out what ticks me off the most about it. It's not the teams building the robot together, but what this could do to future seasons, along with the fact they didn't even see if it was ok with FIRST. There's a difference, biased, yes, but still well founded, that it's dangerous for big businesses or teams join, it leads to big problems. I remeber a small Mac based software company, that started with nothing, but then grew very big. Yeah, it's Microsoft. They partnered with many big companies to screw over the little guy. While 254 and 60 might not be doing the last sentence, if this passes as ok, we might see this in future seasons. No longer could alliances be based on whos the best, but who you picked before the season to be a complement to your robot, which could even go to have a big influence of coroporations. Wouldn't it be a really good PR move to have all the Corporation X teams on one alliance!*

If you really wanted a challange, why didn't you give lots of your resources to rookie teams, and then build your robot whith just minimal money, tools, and time?

Overall, I hope we see something from FIRST about this, although I doubt the Update #10 thing-ie was relased because of this.

*sarcasm
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Unread 17-02-2004, 09:01
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Re: Robot Collaboration

I commend Teams 60 and 254 for their work and for stepping outside the norm. I like that in a team and think it pushes the envelope. That is how we can drive change. Undoubtedly, Team 60 and 254 have learned a great deal about working together with diversity. Great value in that.

Sharing Intellectual Property (drawings, ideas, white papers, comments, critiques, strategy, etc.) improves the game for everyone as it continues to raise the level of play and challenges all teams to kick it up a notch to compete. That type of sharing and helping of other teams -to me, that is FIRST.

Helping at a competition, making a replacement part, showing someone how to program, offering advise and working on someone else's machine so that they can stay in the game - to me, that is FIRST.

I only disagree with the fact that 60 & 254 then made systems for each other. That did give an advantage because it is easier and quicker to make 2 of something than 1 of two different things. There are also the cost questions to be addressed. Sharing a machined part is different than sharing an idea or a drawing.

And so, 60 & 254 - good job at working together, good job at pushing the envelope, great bravery for making it all public knowledge.

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