pic: Legal Frame ????????????????

[budly99]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

You got an award for blatantly breaking a rule?

I understand it's by no means your fault, and you obviously didn't mean to, but how could that happen in FIRST?

The same way teams get rewarded after posting how they design their robot, send the plans to their sponsor, and recieve a kit back with all the parts cut, brackets bent and metal skins laser cut. A simple bolt together and they are hard to compete with.

[EricH]

Deleted--double post

[EricH]

Originally Posted by budly99

The same way teams get rewarded after posting how they design their robot, send the plans to their sponsor, and recieve a kit back with all the parts cut, brackets bent and metal skins laser cut. A simple bolt together and they are hard to compete with.

There is NO RULE saying that that is illegal. If that is how the team chooses to conduct their design and build, that is their business. I don't know of a single team that does that, BTW. The bumper rules are clear-cut (or mostly so, with some recurring "is this legal" Q&A questions that are typically answered quickly and clearly).

squirrel, one of the judges at Arizona last year was doing inspections on Thursday. Just for reference...

[MrForbes]

Originally Posted by EricH

squirrel, one of the judges at Arizona last year was doing inspections on Thursday. Just for reference...

One judge out of how many, about 20? I'd say it's very unlikely that more than 10% of the judges at any regional know the rules well enough to perform robot inspection. It's not their job. It's the robot inspectors' job.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by squirrel

One judge out of how many, about 20? I'd say it's very unlikely that more than 10% of the judges at any regional know the rules well enough to perform robot inspection. It's not their job. It's the robot inspectors' job.

I didn't have time to count the number of judges. Being short-handed and then behind schedule does that to ya...

You're right, it's not the judges' job to know the robot rules well enough to inspect. But I wouldn't be terribly surprised to find that quite a few inspectors (or former inspectors, or refs, or mentors) are judges across the country. If we're counting "general idea, but can't cite the exact rule or knowledge a year or two old", then you might get up to about 25%.

[Vikesrock]

Originally Posted by budly99

The same way teams get rewarded after posting how they design their robot, send the plans to their sponsor, and recieve a kit back with all the parts cut, brackets bent and metal skins laser cut. A simple bolt together and they are hard to compete with.

You mean the robot that they put in hundreds of hours prototyping, designing, and entering into CAD in meticulous detail? Some teams emphasize the physical shop work of putting a robot together, but it is by no means a requirement of the competition. The process these teams go through is likely far closer to an actual real life engineering process than what your team does or what mine has done in past years.

[budly99]

Originally Posted by Vikesrock

You mean the robot that they put in hundreds of hours prototyping, designing, and entering into CAD in meticulous detail? Some teams emphasize the physical shop work of putting a robot together, but it is by no means a requirement of the competition. The process these teams go through is likely far closer to an actual real life engineering process than what your team does or what mine has done in past years.

Sorry for venting. I have asked to have the post removed. But, most teams do not have the option of shipping off a design and have the parts made for them. I was only referencing a post I saw last year. FIRST is about the journey...but most of the awards are based on final product.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by budly99

Sorry for venting. I have asked to have the post removed. But, most teams do not have the option of shipping off a design and have the parts made for them. I was only referencing a post I saw last year. FIRST is about the journey...but most of the awards are based on final product.

Teams including my own have worked very hard to secure the ability to get stuff machined off site. We have a small sponsor that churns out CNCed parts like no one else and we're very grateful. It took my team tons of work to come up with what little resources we had.

What makes you think the teams you are referencing just had these sponsors fall into their lap? What makes you think if you're not standing by the mill as it's running you're not trying, or you've somehow done less engineering?

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by budly99

The same way teams get rewarded after posting how they design their robot, send the plans to their sponsor, and recieve a kit back with all the parts cut, brackets bent and metal skins laser cut. A simple bolt together and they are hard to compete with.

All that design must be so easy, huh. All they have to do is make a perfect CAD model of their entire robot exactly as it will work, then they have to assemble, test, and try again if something isn't perfect.

Sounds like a walk in the park to me.

The teams you're not so subtly referencing have earned every award they've ever got - and taught their students more about engineering than a thousand lessons on how to use a mill.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by budly99

The same way teams get rewarded after posting how they design their robot, send the plans to their sponsor, and recieve a kit back with all the parts cut, brackets bent and metal skins laser cut. A simple bolt together and they are hard to compete with.

One is against the rules, the other is completely legal. Do me a favor and delete this post, we can have a little chat about this topic on Monday and if you still feel this way I will fully support you in posting this in a new thread that it is more relevant to.

[artdutra04]

Originally Posted by budly99

The same way teams get rewarded after posting how they design their robot, send the plans to their sponsor, and recieve a kit back with all the parts cut, brackets bent and metal skins laser cut. A simple bolt together and they are hard to compete with.

My standard advice:

Stop whining about something that can be fixed by working harder.

Teams that have the resources to do lots of prototyping, design their entire robots in CAD, send the parts to machine shop sponsors, and assemble completed robots are the way they are because of a lot of hard work. These resources and relationships did not just fall in their laps. These teams provide their students a very engaging and rewarding opportunity to work with engineers and companies, to participate in an advanced engineering design process, thoroughly ideate and test prototype ideas, understand topics like manufacturability and limitations of various fabrication technologies, see how using CAD software significantly improves the final robot, and much, much more.

Instead of whining about these teams, recruit engineering mentors. Recruit machine shop sponsors. Fundraiser throughout the year to afford lots of prototyping. Learn and become fluent in CAD software. With enough hard work, any team can become a top tier team.

How do I know this is possible? When I first joined 228, we had about eight students and an annual budget of about $12k. Last year, our budget was probably among the top quarter percentile of FRC teams, we had identical practice and competition robots with parts made at our school, at two sponsor machine shops in Connecticut, and at one sponsor machine shop in California. We attended three official events and took home a Regional banner and Regional Engineering Inspiration award. We bucked the traditional advice against never designing a swerve for the first time during the build season, and did just that (and even made it able to drive over the bump), and other than a bearing defect issue (out of our control) got it working within the six weeks build. And we worked our collective buts off for the entire year, both inside and out of the six week build, to fundraise and get the resources in place to make all that possible. Our goal has never been to whine about the top tier teams, but to become one.

[budly99]

Originally Posted by artdutra04

My standard advice:

Stop whining about something that can be fixed by working harder.

Teams that have the resources to do lots of prototyping, design their entire robots in CAD, send the parts to machine shop sponsors, and assemble completed robots are the way they are because of a lot of hard work. These resources and relationships did not just fall in their laps. These teams provide their students a very engaging and rewarding opportunity to work with engineers and companies, to participate in an advanced engineering design process, thoroughly ideate and test prototype ideas, understand topics like manufacturability and limitations of various fabrication technologies, see how using CAD software significantly improves the final robot, and much, much more.

Instead of whining about these teams, recruit engineering mentors. Recruit machine shop sponsors. Fundraiser throughout the year to afford lots of prototyping. Learn and become fluent in CAD software. With enough hard work, any team can become a top tier team.

How do I know this is possible? When I first joined 228, we had about eight students and an annual budget of about $12k. Last year, our budget was probably among the top quarter percentile of FRC teams, we had identical practice and competition robots with parts made at our school, at two sponsor machine shops in Connecticut, and at one sponsor machine shop in California. We attended three official events and took home a Regional banner and Regional Engineering Inspiration award. We bucked the traditional advice against never designing a swerve for the first time during the build season, and did just that (and even made it able to drive over the bump), and other than a bearing defect issue (out of our control) got it working within the six weeks build. And we worked our collective buts off for the entire year, both inside and out of the six week build, to fundraise and get the resources in place to make all that possible. Our goal has never been to whine about the top tier teams, but to become one.

Kudos to all the teams that can accomplish this. I was responding to the post about an illegal robot getting an award, and the poster wondering how it can happen. My point is I believe there is a bit of a contradiction between the mission of FIRST and the way awards are won.