Building more than one robot / expanding the "season"

[Mr. Van]

On another thread, Joe Johnson said:

"Autonomy is forcing every team I know that is serious about trying to maximize there chances of doing well in the robot competition to build 2 robots -- one to ship and one to program autonomous mode with while you wait to compete at the regionals and championships. This is a serious problem for FIRST in the long run (more serious than the topic of this thread, imho), but it is off topic for this already overheated thread."

I agree that this is a very important thing to consider.

As far as I can see, it changes things substantially. Instead of "we have 6 weeks to build, test, program, etc. and then it goes in a box..." it is becoming "we have 6 weeks to build, and an additional 3-5 weeks to program, test, practice, etc." During the additional time, we can modify the test robot, collect the same "raw" materials and then "fix" the "actual" robot at a competition. Heck, if you weld the entire thing, you can bring a part that has been completely fabricated after ship date and put it on your "actual" robot, after having tested it with your "practice" robot for weeks and weeks.

Why is FIRST allowing teams to keep the controller this year?

Am I way out of wack here?

-Mr. Van
Coach, 599

[KenWittlief]

your only a little out of wack - two or three good wacks should fix you right up :^)

FIRST has said this year that any spare parts you make must be shipped with the robot on the ship date <- EDIT: this part is wrong - see corrections in posts below

- you cant keep making spares at your home site after the ship date, then swap them on your bot at an event.

But you do bring up a good point - in addtion to giving the students driver practice time (which I think is ok) - having a clone-bot also allows you to debug your machine after you shipped it

and as you said, fix the bugs in the original when you get to your first event.

in that regard, yes this does seem to be against the spirit of the rules - it allows teams to do the design and build phases of the design cycle in 6 weeks, then do the test and debug phases after the ship date

so in effect, teams that can afford to clone their bot get a 9 or 10 week 'project schedule' and teams that cant have to finish everything in 6 weeks.

[Joe Johnson]

I think you BOTH are wacked ;-)

As far as I know, the rules say you can bring spare PARTS (not assemblies) with you to the competition as long as they were made during the 6 weeks.

Am I wrong?

Joe J.

[KenWittlief]

ok - Joe is right - you dont have to ship them in your robot crate, but you have to make them during the six weeks after the kickoff:

from team update 6:

�� Fabrication of parts during the 6-week period following the Kickoff and at events.

During the six week period following Kickoff
You may fabricate spare parts for replacement purposes of items on your robot as long as they are exact replacements for parts on the robot you shipped to the event.
They must be brought to the event in a completely disassembled state as individual components (no bolt-on assemblies).

so if you want to fix a bug you found after you shipped your bot, you would have to bring raw materials and fabricate the new parts at the event, in the pits - you cant build any parts back at your site after you shipped your bot.

[Joe Johnson]

After our team fiasco of trying to build 2 robots our first year of FIRST (1996), I swore an oath* that I would never try that again.

I spent the next 6 years telling any rookies that would listen that they should spend the time finishing ONE robot faster in order to get drive time for their students.

Last year, autonomous mode changed my mind. I maintain that it is 10 to 100 times more likely that you will have a competitive autonomous mode if you build a second robot. Given that autonomous mode was huge last year (and figures to be huge this year imho), building 2 robots with lower capability is more likely to help your team than having 1 supercapable robot with a so-so autonomous mode.

So... ...I now tell every rookie team that will listen that they should plan on building 2 robots.

A wise man's mind changes and a fool's mind changes not...

Joe J.



*For those who take oaths seriously, myself included, please note that in this context, I use the term for effect, I did NOT actually swear an oath that I am now breaking.

[KenWittlief]

something our team did this year that really helped out with auton mode is we built a pratice robot before the kickoff meeting, using the 2x4 alum frames and 3/8 plywood base, and the stock FIRST transmissions and drill motors from last year (with old RCs from previous machines)

this allowed our students to build something that ran around on the floor before the kickoff, so they got some confidence in their abilities

and it lets students pratice driving something

and it let us mount a gyro sensor and contact switches and play with the IR sensors in the first few weeks of the program - so we had the basis of our auton mode working on our practice bot (named Frank BTW)

switching it over to the real machine is not hard now, we do have to translate from Pbasic to C - but we are confident that our approach is solid and wont take too much tweaking on KG1 (our real bot for this year: KateGleasonOne)

I keep threating to post photos of Frank on here - I will get to it - maybe tonight (I dont have a digital camera, it 'dissapeared' when my daughter went off to college - I wonder where it could be?!)

[Aaron Lussier]

This is also the first year 151 is trying to build two robots.

-Gives drivers loads of pratice
-Gives Software loads of time to get the code just right

These robots are going to be exactly the same. We have expermented with a second plywood bot for testing but we have found that after the drivers use the pratice bot for a while and then switch to the real robot, there feel for it is off. This is something we did not want to happen again, hence two "real" robots.

-Aaron

[NoRemorse]

The only reasons i see this is fair is for Driver practice. I seem to find that ok, and fair to other teams.

on a side note (related to question):
Can we build ou r controls after the 6 week build?
I mean, continue to add switches and such, or is that not a good idea?
I could go both ways on this one.

[seanwitte]

Originally Posted by NoRemorse

Can we build ou r controls after the 6 week build?
I mean, continue to add switches and such, or is that not a good idea?

Yes, you can work on the OI after the robot ships. If you haven't had time to pretty it up or you don't like the layout you can keep working on it.

[Mr. Van]

Originally Posted by seanwitte

Yes, you can work on the OI after the robot ships. If you haven't had time to pretty it up or you don't like the layout you can keep working on it.

This is sort of what I was getting at. As a teacher/coach/mentor, working an additional 30 hours a week during "build season" is something that I plan for and my wife is able to cope with. The problem comes in when "ship-date" is not the end of the intensive building season - it is just the beginning of the intensive driving/autonomous programming season.

How do other mentors/coaches feel about this?

-Mr. Van

[KenWittlief]

wife?!

you still have a wife?!

this must be your 1st year :^)

lots of mentors catch grief from all directions for the amount of time we spend on this program - FIRST should start a parallel program for all the "FIRST Widows" out there. Find something for them to do when we all dissapear into the black hole for 6 to 10 weeks each winter.

[pras870]

I can't decide on a side to take in this discussion, since I feel this is both a good idea, and a bad idea.

I believe, in a way, allowing this is in the spirit of FIRST. You can think of it as debugging/beta testing after the product is complete. We all know a machine has flaws, and it's also "beta testing" if you will that solves these problems. I've always looked at the first 6 weeks as 1 big prototype/base build project. My team has never built a second robot, but we have continued to program and use simulators. Granted this can't solve a lot of mechanical problems, but it does solve a lot or program errors. As far as building spare parts in the off season goes. I know a lot of teams have done this already before. To my knowledge, you've always been able to create spare parts and bring them to the event, just never bolt on assemblys or radically change your design after it has been shipped. For example, you were not able to create a drive train, assemble it, and $@#$@#$@#$@# it with your robot, then design and build an entirely different drive train. I may be wrong on this, but this was always my understanding.

As far as building a second additionala robot for testing and such. I feel it is unfair to the rookie teams as opposed to the more experienced. Teams just starting out, or even teams that have been around 2-3 years, don't have the funds to buiild a second bot. "Too bad for the rookies," some of you might be thinking, which is just wrong. Remember, we were all rookies once, so put yourself in their shoes. You see teams that build a second robot, and have an amazing driver from being able to practice in the "off-season" (now should be called extended-season). How does that seem fair to you? Just because you don't have the funds, you don't get the same opportunities as someone else?

So do I agree with it or disagree with it, it's an issue that I honestly can not comment on.

And Mr. Van. Congratulatioons on still having a wife after the 6 weeks, must be some woman you have. Let's see how she handles another 6 weeks now

[ShadowKnight]

the "problem" is not arising because FIRST is allowing us to keep our controller for another few weeks, all besides the rookies, everyone had an oi and rc to work with to control their clone robot in the event their team decided to go down that path. I personally think that there is nothing wrong with driving a bot around, getting practice. In fact, I see no real problem with them building a second robot to trouble shoot a design with. Unless the contraption was built during the 6 week period, they have to re-engineer the part on site at the regional. Anything that the team is able to construct within that first day I see no problems with.It's not liek they can completely re-design and build their arm out of raw materials when they arrive. This is nothing new for FIRST teams and I see no reason why everyone is getting all upset. Granted, the prgrammers get a few more weeks but then, I believe that such rules even the playing field for rookie teams who have not been able to construct an autonomus mode, and have a higher curve to climb than veterans. In all honesty, the effect of FIRST allowing teams to keep their oi will be minimal at most. Maybe we'll see more teams who run can with a functional autonomous mode this time.

[Swan217]

I agree that it's really taxing when the build season doesn't end with the six weeks. It's like "Well, robot is shipped. Let's keep working." But I think that it's part of the Gracious Professionalism thing; It all has to do with your mindset of what you're doing with your time.
If you think of it as: the coding or robot that you have at the end of the 6 weeks is your final product, barring some totally unexpected freakish bug, and you're using the post-build time as specifically testing the robot, I think it's ok.
It's like in the real world: The product that Ford or GM ships is the final version of the car for that year, but if there's a problem, then they can issue a recall and fix it, or a customer can bring it in under warranty. As long as you're just "tweaking" the existing model (program code) and not creating an entire new one or changing it drastically, I think it fits in with the spirit of FIRST.


Two of our so called "Robot Widows" ended up getting so fed up with the engineers not being home, that they decided to be part of the team too.

[Shawn60]

Originally Posted by Mr. Van

This is sort of what I was getting at. As a teacher/coach/mentor, working an additional 30 hours a week during "build season" is something that I plan for and my wife is able to cope with. The problem comes in when "ship-date" is not the end of the intensive building season - it is just the beginning of the intensive driving/autonomous programming season.

How do other mentors/coaches feel about this?

-Mr. Van

I work with my team 11 months a year. So the additional time is not that big of a deal. Also, I am not the primary "robot mentor". I have three other adults who head that up. I am the teacher that runs everything else. The key, I think, is to have other adults and students to help.

If you really want to be sneaky... find something on the team your wife may want to help with. When she is addicted like you... that is when the real fun begins.

Shawn
Team 60