New FIRST Ruling -Wow the implications

[kevinw]

This ruling affects everyone adversely, especially those who go to multiple regionals. Not because teams that go to multiple regionals will no longer have enough time to redesign their robot, but because teams that go to multiple regionals increase their likelihood that a major subsystem will fail. If after every regional you had 3 extra days to repair and replace damaged components, this would not be an issue. Now, if my team goes to 3 regionals, there is a chance that we will be forced to simply watch our human player shoot during the second and third regionals due to an unforeseen failure that could not quickly be repaired.

However, it is interesting to note that this ruling offsets the imbalance of Nationals qualifying points awarded during each regional for those going to multiple regionals.

[Matt Reiland]

I have to agree with all about the addition of time to repair. In 2000 the ball grabber on our robot was destroyed beyond repair in the finals of a regional. We were able to weld up a new one for Nationals and bring it on the plane. Same exact design no improvements. If we had to do that in the pits, I would have rather got a refund on the plane tickets, hotel charges and watched on NASA channel. Should we have built 2 spares and shipped them in 6 weeks, sure it's easy to say that now. I don't know how a team could even build two robots worth of spares in 6 weeks, our team can not with the time budget allowed.

Hey if we wanted we could have built a mini-fridge battlebot with 20 wheel drive this year that no-one could have broke (multiple team members are working on Battlebots right now also) but that wasn't the goal. I think the point is even more important for the real veterans of the event. The robots are an engineering miracle for space, weight and time.

You don't bring a Ferrari to a smash up derby which is what some teams think this is.

[UCGL_Guy]

this is a long thread so I'll try to be short. In our two years we were not fortunate enough to have 3 days to work on our robot anyway, so this more or less reflects what we've done already. Our first year at nats "2000" we encountered mechanical problems and did not perform very well even though we were in the finals at Houston. We did win the Nat rookie allstar. We learned a valuable lesson build tough, even for last years friendlier comp. We succeeded in not having any failures for the two events last year. I believe this does level the field a little more.
The overwhelming support and help by teams at the events is what sold me to continue on as a mentor. It is a lot of work and time away from my family (my wife is very supportive) It is this support and spirit of "i don't win unless others win also" that kept me from leaving after 1 year.
Remember there are more important things than the robot, it is just an ends to a means. Put your focus on competing as well as you can and spread GP throughout .
Winning at all costs is not necessarily a win.
I do wish we could send extra identical spare parts after the intial 6 weeks but Oh well.
Hang in there only 2 more weeks.

[Raul]

A big mistake if they do not change the rule.

First I have to say that in my opinion, this rule is very cruel. It will make a lot of people angry at each other. One might graciously accept or at least swallow having their robot damaged by another based on a strategy to "incapacitate". But definite not if they know they will no longer be able to compete because it cannot be repaired.

I am just wondering how Bill Beatty feels about this rule. I know Bill has strong feelings about teams being allowed to do anyhting to improve their robot after the 1st 6 week period. But I wonder how he feels about not being able to do repairs off-line. Hey Bill, I want to hear Carnack wisdom.

Last, I want to say that there is a way around most of this without cheating:
All you have to do is consider your damages and use the time between competitions to plan your actions precisely when yo get to there to do the repairs or improvements. We did this in 2000 when the rules also required shipping your robot from event to event and improvements only on site. We conceived a design which could easily be built on site with simple raw parts and were able to practice building it before we got there. That way we knew ahead of time exacly what to do on practice day to fix our design. It worked well enough to allow us to be #1 seed and win the Midwest reional.

[Bill Beatty]

Raul,

Good to hear from you. Haven't seen many of your good words lately.

I like the fact that the new rule limits the redesign of a machine after the competition has started, but I don't think this is the way to achieve it. I would prefer that FIRST just make the rules of what is acceptable and let professional ethics take it from there. Maybe I have blind faith in the profession, but I figure if someone is going to bend the rules, no amount of controls is going to stop them. I have seen the extreme amount of effort you put in to stay within the rules.

I think the new rule adds additional cost and burden during the build process. We would always machine spares during construction, but usually not totally complete them until we got a chance to see that everything is working. Then finish them up and take them to the competition. Last year you had to finish them, but you didn't have to pack them. This year packing the crates for 5:00 Tue is going to be tough!

The biggest problem, though, is what is a team to do if they have a catastrophic failure during a regional. I think that Joe's idea is not only a good one, it is necessary. Any robot can break this year!

Looking forward to seeing all you guys and your creations.

Regards

[Mr.B]

I’m such a junkie for these discussions…

Is Gracious Professionalism where you find it…or how you define it? Or does it exist as an absolute truth, independent of the rules of the game?


FIRST is a program that has benefited thousands of children, and some older kids too…I’m witness to the latter as are many of you who read this. FIRST has taught us some invaluable lessons. I monitor this site as part of my continuing ed plan. I’m admittedly fascinated by the dialog.

If I might, I’d like to share this insight…..

Gracious Professionalism is not a natural act. For one thing it’s too hard to do without deliberate concentration…it is not yet reflexive in all of us. Winning is winning and loosing is losing, no matter how you define it, and no matter how many winners or losers a particular game has.

Winning is a nice thing…but losing is the character builder and the better teacher…..(hold this thought until the end of this missive.)

In 96’ or was it 97?… Chief Delphi won rookie of the year that year…and if I’m not mistaken…the CD Robot that competed in NH…was a lesser cousin to the awesome clawed machine that performed so well a few weeks later in the nationals……

Because of that, the robots our team took from regional to Nationals were thoroughly reconfigured between events…we believed making better robots was a form of gracious professionalism….those were the hardest 3 days of the competition…especially since they followed those grueling 6 weeks…..

The Chief Delphi 3 day robot “Fix” was an awesome display of redesign and reconstruction …as far as we knew only the Clinton Crew and Bill Beatty, built perfect machines “Out of the Box”…cause they must have had a big box full of nearly perfect machines.….

I remember that Joe and company were playing to win.…. so was that team with all the 1’s (111) and that was nothing to be ashamed of…nobody was pretending that winning was not important…and each time that our kids played the Delphi kids, or the Clinton kids or the wild Stang kids or any of the students from the other teams, we played to win…knowing we had the opportunity and abilities to fix whatever broke.

This new ruling will “Shackle” those teams who play to win. This rule will serve to negate creative adaptation and will as it is intended to do….make everyone a bit more careful..and a bit less aggressive…this is my theory about the rule…it will serve to offset the temptation to take out another team’s bot’,,,cause the risks of taking someone out are reciprocal…you remember..action and reaction…conservation of momentum…also the rule requires more due diligence during the 6 week construction period (read make it harder to get the job done well) during the already intensive (read too short) 6 week period.

The logic of the ruling is inescapable as Joe describes it, and equally clear from the perspective outlined above……and it is flawed in it’s premise.

The rule serves to create equality by limiting and restricting the use of team resources that we all share, such as time, strategies and creativity. Instead, FIRST and those who participate in FIRST, should promote parity through expanding team resources and options and restricting the monies spent….and loose the victim mentality. After all FIRST is the participants…no FIRST teams…no FIRST…

Example: Designers are necessarily limited in 5 essential ways:

Time (no one has forever to do anything)
Money/Resources (no one has everything)
Power ( you can’t use nukes)
Weight ( Even the rich teams gotta stop bolting stuff on eventually)
Knowledge (Even the Motorola Guys/Gals stop and scratch their collective craniums sometime)

First creates artificial values for some of these…and perhaps the ideal mix has not yet been developed.

In First, Time is finite and clearly defined…the restriction on parts ( the kit) is intended to save time (Locating and developing appropriate technology is by far the most time consuming aspect of any design project…but also the most educational…kits save time, but they limit the knowledge you gain by sourcing and comparing) That’s why modular homes and kit homes are far less costly…and desirable, than custom homes…reduced options…

In FIRST, Money is definitely NOT clearly defined….or even restricted in any meaningful way. Sure the robot has to have x dollars in the final product…but teams we all know and love spend tens of K’s developing the forms of the few hundred dollars in copper, aluminum, plastic and steel that ends up on the robot, …so the money limitation does not serve the purpose it is intended to serve..it does not level the field…read the posts…5k – 15K per bot…and more.

There are teams who have competed with true 500 dollar robots…the flying pig comes to mind…
So how did the competing teams level the playing field….spare parts was one way….

And the next 6 weeks were spent making spare parts….always we made spare parts….

Spare parts take time…poor teams can trade time for money, brain power and ingenuity can overcome deep pockets and limitless resources…so restricting the money spent on the machines,,,not the time, will promote some of the parity required and desired……it seems less appropriate to limit the time making the things that can be so very advantageous…things that decide winning or losing…the spare parts!

I’ll try to close the wide radius I’ve drawn..…winning is not an expectation for the majority of players..but participating fully is…and a broken part can mean not participating.

Make things really fair, limit money more than time or spare parts…

With respect to busted robots….there have been busted robots throughout the 10+ years of FIRST…it happens…During the 95 games, the first FIRST nationals were decided by a two out of three match between two bot’s, where each team toppled the other and where robots were broken in the heat of competition or combat…(whichever word offends least)…and no higher Gracious Professionalism could have ever been demonstrated then was shown by Wayne Paradise and the Clinton team…who gave up their time outs…their help, tools and expertise…and yes…their SPARE PARTS to help heal the robot they knocked over, a robot team who eventually went on to beat them in that final match……..think about what you just read….Robots get bumped, they get whacked and they break. And great positive life lessons should be the outcome…not crying or feeling victimized…but to do this right…you gotta BE a gracious professional and you gotta have spare parts!

Mr.B

[Joe Johnson]

Glad as always to hear your voice on the forum Mike.

We miss you more than you can know.

Here's to you and the gang from Plymouth North.

Joe J.