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Unread 25-08-2003, 01:43
kmcclary's Avatar
kmcclary kmcclary is offline
Founder 830/1015;Mentor 66/470/1502
FRC #0470 (Alpha Omega Robotics)
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Re: QOTW 08-24-03: Old School

Quote:
Originally posted by JVN
Andy [Baker] wants to know:

Question of the Week 08-24-03: Over the years, FIRST has loosened up robot build restrictions. [...] Now, we can build a robot out of whatever we want (within reason and limitations of some common components).

What do you think of this change in robot building philosophy?
This is much closer to industry, but we're not quite there yet.

I think it is very fair to allow hardware store stuff while still limiting "exotic" materials that give deep pocket teams an unreasonable "strength to weight" advantage.

However, that said, I still wish FIRST would open up the TECHNOLOGIES, especially electronics, and pneumatic controls.

For the new people: The current build rules have separate restrictions for dollar spent on electronics vs mechanics ($400 vs $3500 overall), and NO pneumatic plumbing nor control components may be added over the base kit. Electronic components and CPUs must come from one of a couple of vendors, which don't even give us a discount.

IOW, currently we can spend $2000 on a complicated drivetrain, but we can't even spend 50 cents for another pneumatic elbow... We can buy a tire from anywhere, but we must purchase electronics from only one of couple vendors. We can't assist a relatively weak Robot Controller in its Autonomous Mode with outboard CPU assist designs, unless we're both VERY frugal financially, AND all of the parts used happen to be stock items with only a few specific vendors.

This doesn't make sense to me at all.

Is a goal of this program to teach students how it really works "out there"?

In the "real world", you find things wherever you can, and trade off technologies all of the time for cost/weight/time savings. Many industries routinely replace complicated mechanical designs with simple micros, sensors, and actuator controls to create far superior products. Look at how much simpler automotive fuel injection is to complicated carburetors. All of the mechanical "calculations" previously done with myriad parts of complicated shape are now done totally in software, which allows for rapid modifications as the design evolves.

IMHO, I strongly feel it would be a much better preparation for the real world to simply place a UNIFIED weight, dollar cap, and given actuators (e.g. keep the "$3500 over kit" and current weight and actuator/motor limits), but allow that $3500 to be ANY mix of electronics, mechanics, pneumatic controls, optics, (etc.) that the team wishes, from wherever they can find it, AS LONG AS the documentation of that cost is auditable.

IOW, If a team can somehow figure out how do this contest with simply the kit materials and a light weight $1500 minicomputer with a suite of software, or run those limited pistons with complicated pneumatic plumbing controls without going over budget, GREAT. I feel we should let them do it instead of penalizing them by artificially favoring a close to pure mechanical design. Favoring one technology over others restricts innovation, and prevents our students from seeing how REAL industry does control design trade-offs in the information age.

Let's make next year's contest a REAL battle of technological innovation, by simply limiting actuators, weight, and power, making a unified dollar cap, and throwing the technologies open! Instead of segmenting the dollar and vendor limits by technology, let's see what the electrical vs mechanical vs pneumatic wizards can REALLY do on a level field! I'd be excited to see the robots created when the various team & sponsor combinations can REALLY tap their design strengths!

Just my $.02...

Can anyone from FIRST please comment on why we have these artificial limits to the electronics and pneumatics now? There may be an excellent reason that I simply don't see from this perspective. Thanks!

What do you guys think? Should the contest be open to all technologies equally? (Or maybe this should be another week's question???)

- Keith
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Keith McClary - Organizer/Mentor/Sponsor - Ann Arbor MI area FIRST teams
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