Why do we bother bagging?

[Kernaghan]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

The only real issue with not bagging is, nobody would attend the first two weeks of events if the build season extended right up to the events, and for that problem, I have no solution.

I believe this may not be an issue. At early season events all teams will have had the same amount of time to work on their robot, and thus be on a level playing field. The neatest part about no bag and tag would be seeing the level at each competition progressively get better. This would also help low resource teams - because they do exist, FIRST is expensive - who can't afford to attend multiple competitions, where other teams get to work on their robot and practice.

With only a few exceptions, including the legendary Coyotes; having a practice robot gives teams a significant advantage. Looking at our twin robots before bag and tag last night, I couldn't help but think to myself, with all these resources used we could have completely funded another team. No bag and tag would improve the competition level, making the sport more spectator friendly and potentially lower the amount of resources used by teams, allowing space for new teams.

Just my thoughts.

[Dave McLaughlin]

Originally Posted by Michael Hill

Clearly our definitions of "fair" differ. Surely you can't think that a rookie team building out of a parent's garage is expected to be able to afford and build two identical robots in the same manner as teams with access to CNC waterjet, milling, lathe, etc. All that stuff doesn't appear over their first year just by "working hard". There's a clear analogy to socioeconomics we have today, but I'll refrain from going there.

I guess I would argue that there is no good way that I can see to make this competition "fair" for rookies. But I would also argue that that is okay. FIRST, For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, not Fair yet Inspiring for Rookies and Second year Teams. If your team can inspire your kids by building and bagging one robot that is fantastic. If not bagging your robot so that you can keep working on it inspires your kids that is also fantastic. On my team we build two robots and I hope that we are inspiring our kids, and I hope that you think that is fantastic as well.

I can tell you this from personal experience. Team 1983 started in 2007 when I was a sophomore and the robot that we produced in Coach Steele's portable was no mechanical work of art. We could drive, and... well... that was about it. The idea of making a practice robot was something we had never thought of, nor would it have been something we could have completed. We crated our robot just like everyone else did on ship day and we waited to compete. When we got to competition our robot was nothing special, and we didn't win many matches, but we were very proud of the robot that we built. We were fortunate enough to compete at the Las Vegas Regional during our rookie year, which afforded us the opportunity to sit on the carpet with some of the great teams in first. We played with the Poofs, and we played against Pink and the High Rollers, and those teams inspired US to strive to be better.

To this day I am still inspired every year when I see the machines that teams produce. I am also a bit taken aback by your statement that teams are wasting money on a practice bot.

Originally Posted by Michael Hill

I'm saying teams waste thousands of dollars every year to build a second robot that doesn't need to be built.

Our team thinks that it is worth it to spend the extra money and time to reap the benefits that building a practice bot can bring. I don't think it is a waste for our team in the slightest. However, if you prefer not to build two robots, don't! From reading this thread it seems 610 was able to win a world championship without a practice robot, bagging on stop build date just like everyone else.

[DanielPlotas]

We (1948) would like to see the bag and tag go, because we only have 1 cRIO, (i know we're getting the new things next year, but we might not be able to afford another one) and in the rules the 45 lb of parts you don't have to bag cannot include parts of the control system (cRIO). Also, our robots aren't built to exact dimensions, its more of, "does it shoot too far? just bend this piece back and shorten that one.", so it would be very difficult to make two identical robots, even if we had the funding.

[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by Jeffy

The only thing stopping your team from being like them is more hard work.

Just going to point out that this is the same "poor people deserve to be poor" nonsense that you see thrown around in modern politics, and is not necessarily grounded in reality. Success does not correlate perfectly with effort; if you deny that there is a very large "lottery" element then you are fooling yourself.

It is very likely true, as Dave said, that there is no real way to make this competition "fair" for teams with limited resources. However, it certainly can be made more fair or less fair by certain rules, and I think this is pretty clearly in the latter category.

I must ask, why exactly would reworking the system to remove the benefit of a second robot be a bad idea? Even if we concede that the only factor allowing teams to build a second robot is "hard work," this is wholly irrelevant to the impact of the proposed change on the competition in all capacities except for motivation for well-off teams (keep in mind that "fairness" is a heuristic; the real question at hand is whether the competition would be improved by the rule change). Does anyone honestly think that this change would so demotivate teams with the resources to build two robots that it'd be a detriment to the competition? On what basis? That seems patently absurd to me.

As it stands, the current rules very clearly widen the gap created by access to resources; it seems obvious to me that, within reason, FIRST should do all it can to promote the opposite.

[nxtmonkeys]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

Just going to point out that this is the same "poor people deserve to be poor" nonsense that you see thrown around in modern politics, and is not necessarily grounded in reality. Success does not correlate perfectly with effort; if you deny that there is a very large "lottery" element then you are fooling yourself.

Sure. I think that evil people deserve to be poor. That way, they can't make all of the evil machines to take over the world.

[Dave McLaughlin]

I think that you make a "fair" point Eli. However, I would counter with the opinion that effectively extending build season until a teams first competition would do more harm than good. If a team is indeed building their robot in a garage with hacksaws and hammers I would be of the opinion that 1-5 more weeks of build would have little impact on the final robot that competes. It is not their fault, especially if they are rookies, there is just only so much you can do with limited resources.

On the other hand, if you give a team with high end manufacturing capabilities, and a comfortable budget 1-5 more weeks to refine a single robot I think that the end results would be astonishing. The bag day provides all teams the same deadline, and the withholding allowance gives all teams the same opportunity to make changes to their competition robot at competition, or during a work window.

[Libby K]

I'll admit, I got through to about five-responses-ago and I'm seeing a lot of talking in circles. But hey, here's my two cents anyway.

I found this quote in the unbagging-for-demos thread, and I thought it explained things kind of nicely, so here ya go:

Originally Posted by jvriezen

Leave the bot sitting on the bag, or the bag next to the bot by your display, and it will invite questions. This will give you an opportunity to talk about other key aspects of FRC, regarding how it is a mini version of a real world engineering project, with real world deadlines and contingency plans that involve working hard to make the bot complete at the competition.

Part of the FIRST challenge is not having enough time. That's ALWAYS been a part of the constraints. Doing things like fundraising for the resources build a practice bot are things that some teams do to prepare for that. Remember, even crated robots 'back in the day' had practice twins. This has nothing to do with what container your competition robot is in - it's about making sure all teams have (roughly) the same amount of time to work on the machine that goes to competition. Would you sign up for a Week 1 district if you knew the Week 4 & 5 events meant you got another few weeks of build?

In the interest of full disclosure -1923 builds in a donated retail space - used to work in a garage. We have a drill press, a few different saws, and then just power drills and other hand tools. (No machining sponsor either.) I wouldn't call that a 'nice shop', but we do what we can. Yes, we build a practice robot. We have 100+ students, so it's our way of getting more hands on machines. It's just a bonus that it means we get extra driving practice & tweak time. They're not twins right now - in fact, "Robot B" is a nice way to test some things we didn't have time for that might make it into our withholding.

Just like we used to crate the robot up, the bag is a nice reminder that time is a constraint in the challenge. It makes sure that all teams have (roughly) the same time to work on the competition 'bot. I agree that the unbagging between districts feels odd - but it's a pretty decent way of making up for not having a Thursday at our first two events.

On top of all that - how burned out would you be if build were even longer? I know personally, I'm tapped out. I'm done. It's time to give everyone - our kids, our teachers, our mentors, our parents - a break so they can be ready for competition.

[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by Dave McLaughlin

I think that you make a "fair" point Eli. However, I would counter with the opinion that effectively extending build season until a teams first competition would do more harm than good. If a team is indeed building their robot in a garage with hacksaws and hammers I would be of the opinion that 1-5 more weeks of build would have little impact on the final robot that competes. It is not their fault, especially if they are rookies, there is just only so much you can do with limited resources.

On the other hand, if you give a team with high end manufacturing capabilities, and a comfortable budget 1-5 more weeks to refine a single robot I think that the end results would be astonishing. The bag day provides all teams the same deadline, and the withholding allowance gives all teams the same opportunity to make changes to their competition robot at competition, or during a work window.

This is a "fairly" () polarized representation of the capabilities of FRC teams. I guarantee that there's a huge number of fairly capable teams with limited resources that would benefit hugely from the type of extended build time that a second robot currently provides; it's not only teams with 6-axis waterjets who put out winning robots and teams with hacksaws and hammers who are hopeless.

Moreover, I'm not all that certain that removing the bag requirement would have much impact at all on the higher-end teams, given the size of the witholding budget and the fact that all parts they build between bag day and competition can be interfaced with an exact copy of the bagged robot and tested. There might be some complete rebuilds that would be enabled by this that wouldn't otherwise be possible, but much of the work is stuff that teams are already able to do.

[Pault]

Originally Posted by DanielPlotas

We (1948) would like to see the bag and tag go, because we only have 1 cRIO, (i know we're getting the new things next year, but we might not be able to afford another one) and in the rules the 45 lb of parts you don't have to bag cannot include parts of the control system (cRIO). Also, our robots aren't built to exact dimensions, its more of, "does it shoot too far? just bend this piece back and shorten that one.", so it would be very difficult to make two identical robots, even if we had the funding.

Actually, due to a recent team update, you are allowed to withhold anything, or even everything, from the bag. This includes the CRIO. I hope that not knowing this did not affect your team too much.

About bag and tag: I think that getting rid of it makes sense. I have seen a lot of reasonable, logical arguments for why it should be done, but not many for why it shouldn't. Although I'm not particularly passionate about the subject, so next year if it hasn't changed I won't be too upset.

[Dave McLaughlin]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

This is a "fairly" () polarized representation of the capabilities of FRC teams.

I will concede that I was perhaps a bit hyperbolic in my analogy. At this point though we are both just speculating. Do I know that teams with opulent resources will benefit more from a longer build? No. Does my gut say they would? Yes. I can see reason in both sides of the argument to remove bag day.

[Exla357]

I'd very strongly argue that team "lottery" or "fortune" or rookieness has not as much to do with bag and tag success as is being said. I'm going to bring up this build season as an example. As anybody familiar with my team knows, we have a close allegiance off the field with another FRC team in our city. I'm not going to name numbers. If you know, you know.

This team's rookie year was 2012. They're high school is in the wealthier part of our city and they have no shortage of money and mentors compared to us.

My team, 159, on the other hand, is a different story. We are run out of the more middle class side of town. We've been around since '98 which means no rookie grants or big cash donations for us. This season, we lost our biggest sponsor, Ottercares. Coming into the 2014 season, we had a shortage of both students and money.

We (the students) had to make changes in how things were run. We persevered, and finished our robot working and on time this year. That doesn't usually happen with us. We were able to bag our robot at 11:59 and were very proud of our accomplishment.

The other team had been sharing our shop this weekend, because theirs wasn't open. They had over engineered and their robot was 55 pounds overweight. This is Tuesday. They worked for the whole weekend and right alongside us till midnight, taking apart their robot, re engineering, drilling holes, doing whatever they could to cut weight. They reassembled and bagged with no time to spare and still overweight.

Now, I'm not trying to knock these guys in any way. But did their protobot and electronics testing kit help them? Did their many mentors and superior funding help them get bagged in time with a legal bot? They had fancier tools. They had more people. They had shinier wires.

I wish their team the best of luck at regionals this year and hope they can make things work.

In my experience, your team's success during build season comes down to your team itself. While I will certainly agree that having a nicer machine shop for example helps a lot, it is by no means the only factor in a successful build season. The bag date levels the playing field. Everybody gets the same amount of time to build. Life isn't fair. There's always luck involved. Welcome to the real world.

[Mike Martus]

This debate in one form or another has been going on since the start of FIRST. Is there a magic answer - NO , Only opinions.

Interesting how it keeps resurfacing........and the debate goes on as long as we are all civil and are nice to each other as we are all entitled to our opinion.
as the famous philosopher has said, "Keep your stick on the Ice".

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by Libby K

Part of the FIRST challenge is not having enough time. That's ALWAYS been a part of the constraints.

There won't magically be enough time when Stop Build Day joins the Shipping Crate and IFI Control System as icons of an era gone-by. I would confidently wager that lack of time will always be part of the FIRST challenge. You can always make things a little bit better if only you just had a few more hours.

With the a 45 lb withholding allowance and the games you can play with COTs parts, I'm sure there will be teams that bring an entire new superstructure install it Thursday. Meanwhile we unbagged for a demo today at one of our sponsors, but our best driver couldn't strut her stuff since it might be called driver practice? It all just seems a little bit silly.

[Seth Mallory]

I for one like the stop date. While the students will keep on working it will be at a lower level. No more nights or weekends. The main problem is that the main mentors need the break. By this point families want their members that they loaned to the team back. College work needs to be caught up. Yards and houses that have been ignored need worked on. Prepping for classes and other jobs needs to be done. Winding down and catching up on sleep is a health problem that needs to be addressed. I also miss being home enough to cook some meals.

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by Seth Mallory

I for one like the stop date. While the students will keep on working it will be at a lower level. No more nights or weekends. The main problem is that the main mentors need the break. By this point families want their members that they loaned to the team back. College work needs to be caught up. Yards and houses that have been ignored need worked on. Prepping for classes and other jobs needs to be done. Winding down and catching up on sleep is a health problem that needs to be addressed. I also miss being home enough to cook some meals.

This is the point that I think FIRST misses, and does not get brought up often enough. For many of us, FRC completely sidelines everything else we do, for 3 or 4 months out of a year. I want the stop build day to be a stop build day. Currently it isn't. You can keep going with 45 lbs more, and you can keep going on a practice robot. The current system is broken and creates a huge disparity between the haves and the have-nots.

/circles