$3500 ruling......big mistake

[MRL180YTL2002]

Originally posted by JamesJones
I'm guess I'm not making my point.

1. I'm still going to build the same robot, you just better get a good magazine when we go on stage because our name is going to contain our sponsor + five machine shops....hence free labor.

2. It is unfortunate that some teams don't have alot of machine shop resources....believe me I have been there. It is also unfortunate that some football teams don't have good quarterbacks. I think we should make the good quarterbacks sit out to give the lousy ones a chance.

3. Let me give an example. I worked at Motorola for two years and was on their team (267). Motorola had a model shop that did half or more of the machining on the robot. We built some pretty nice robots that would would have been very expensive had we paid fair market value. None of that labor would have counted toward the $3500 limit because motorola was the main sponsor, motorola did the machining so I could have spent $100000 on labor and it wouldn't matter. Now I'm on a team whose sponsor gives money but not machining. Now I can only bring a $3500 robot while Motorola (if they still exist) can bring a $100,000 robot. That's FIRST fairness?

4. Labor should not be tracked at all period. It's a hassle to the mentors and volunteers that adds no value to the experience or goals of FIRST. It does not make the game more fair it makes it more unfair. The teams with no machining resources have no machining resources. The game will always be stacked against them. It's part of building their team to go out and get those resources. Now FIRST has taken teams that might have parity in manufacturing capability and hamstrung the teams whose main sponsor doesn't have a machine shop.

James

I must quote my fellow teammate and adult mentor here. But its also not just this rule. There's also teams that have quarter million dollar budgets complaing about the two regional ruling. Instead of complaining, what about donating to other teams, setting up scholarships, etc.... that would be the true F.I.R.S.T. spirit (not to mention look good on the Chairman's Award). When I first started on S.P.A.M. we had a bunch of table top tools (drill press, band saw, really meant for hobby work, none of this heavy duty stuff), hand tools, and the Pratt and Whitney machines (whatever was available we had a machinist use), engineers donating their time, the like. Now these teams have engineers and machinists ASSIGNED to work for the company sponsored F.I.R.S.T. team, I found that out. This competition has NEVER BEEN FAIR but this $3500 limit for the robot with labor, with some of these designs, namely GEARBOXES and CHASSIS, a lot of time is spent simply machining the parts just to get a robot to move on the field. The increase of manufacturing was a move on our part to complete the robot way ahead of the ship date to debug the robot. This allows us obviously to correct problems (or repairing the occasional jumping off the shelf gearbox). I have spent hours (at least 3 at KSC and 6 at Epcot) repairing our gearboxes. If we found out these problems earlier, we could have never spent as much time on that endeavour. I've worked my way from simply hacksaws to bandsaws yes. We've built up our team in this way as well. Our team and sponsor benefits. But also I must add is that these sponsors and supporters contribute this as their donation, rather than money. Furthermore, these Machine Shops are a critical part of spreading the F.I.R.S.T. message as they have amongst many groups the most to benefit from F.I.R.S.T. activities. So don't tell me its not fair that you're working with a cordless drill, hacksaws, screw drivers, all starting teams begin there and you slowly add more and more equipment. I have not met a team that has been "properly supported" in the beginning with shops, engineers, etc.... other than the big name teams. This competition has never been fair.

In this whole rant if you've read it this far, the F.I.R.S.T. community is never even. If you want to talk money in the robot, what about money to go to competition. People complained about the two regional limit. So yeah, $3500 in the robot, great. All this work wasted. I've seen us grow and expand, part of this expansion includes machine shops (specifically those 5 who said they'd help). A lot of support was drummed up last year due to our success and also we owe our success to solid design and MANUFACTURING.

Michael Lee
International Baccalaureate Senior
South Fork High School
U.S. F.I.R.S.T. Robotics Competition Team 180, S.P.A.M.;
International Summit of Young Technology Leaders 2002
(YTL Summit) Network Delegate