Teams that do not bag their robots

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by Brandon Holley

Don- I agree mentor burnout is a very very legitimate concern for FIRST in general. However, I think a large reason you see teams continue to improve over a season is because of withholding allowance.

Some people view withholding allowance as 'unpure' for lack of a better word. In my opinion however, it is the essence of engineering and design. Teams may test and practice all year in their labs, but until they get out on the field and compete, they are not fully vetting their solutions. Withholding allowance allows for iteration and refinement which raises the level of play for just about every team playing

-Brando

In my experience, it's not the withholding allowance that lets teams get better over the course of the season... it's run time. With the exception of this year (which was a fluke), my team has always done significantly better at our second regional. We've never really utilized the withholding allowance.

When the first regional starts, our drivers have very little practice. Programming has only had a few hours with the robot. Simply put, we have issues that we haven't had time to fix yet.

When the second regional starts, we've had three 8+ hour days of hard work testing, refining, and driving the robot in the previous regional. We also have practical experience knowing how the game will be played. We come out much more prepared, and as a result perform much better.

I'll add to that a note of something I observed this season. There was a team in Duluth that ended up seeding very well. When they came down to Minneapolis, they brought in a brand new 30lb shooter and spent the first day swapping it out on their machine. They didn't do as well in Minneapolis. They then went to Champs last week, used their withholding to bring in another new shooter, and spent some time modifying their bot. The first two iterations were tall, while the third was short enough to fit under the pyramid. From what I've heard, they issues the entire weekend. Iterating with your withholding allowance isn't always beneficial.