Why do we bother bagging?

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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".

[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

[MrForbes]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

The current system is broken and creates a huge disparity between the haves and the have-nots.

It allows a sizable disparity between those teams who choose to keep working, and those who don't.

We stopped working. You can too, if you want to.

[Doug G]

Originally Posted by MrForbes

It allows a sizable disparity between those teams who choose to keep working, and those who don't.

We stopped working. You can too, if you want to.

This doesn't change if there were no bag day. Take a day off. Go for it. Nothing stopping us. In fact many teams already take days off during the build season anyways.

To me it is a money thing. We just finished a third season with building two robots. We fundraise extra money to do this. But I feel it is somewhat wasted money. That money could go towards so many more things... more laptops that students could use for programming, more machining and fabrication equipment so more students could learn, more students could travel to a competition. If we want FIRST to reach more students, then things like this bag-day timeline (build 2 robots & witholding allowance) needs to stop. VRC seems to do just fine without it.

If you argue that in the real world there is deadlines, so too must there be in FRC. In what industry are you allowed to ship 62.5% of your product to the customer.

[Anupam Goli]

Originally Posted by Doug G

To me it is a money thing. We just finished a third season with building two robots. We fundraise extra money to do this. But I feel it is somewhat wasted money. That money could go towards so many more things... more laptops that students could use for programming, more machining and fabrication equipment so more students could learn, more students could travel to a competition. If we want FIRST to reach more students, then things like this bag-day timeline (build 2 robots & witholding allowance) needs to stop. VRC seems to do just fine without it.

I've never viewed the 2nd robot as a waste of money. It's always a great tool to have. It allows us to get more students hands on the robot, giving them more machining experience, and showing them how we can iterate offline and perfect those iterations and apply it to the master product.

Originally Posted by Willyspu

Why would the 6 week limit on build time be relevant if you keep working on it or another bot?

I guess we have been pretty naive to figure it was an honor system of 6 weeks and not more. Our robot is in the bag. We will finish our bumpers and wait until our first competition to open the bag.

What value is gracious professionalism to your team? And what other rules is your team trying to skirt?

Jim

FIRST can't stop anyone from having a second robot and developing mechanisms offline or tell us how to use our own team resources. They give us a witholding allowance each year to develop mechanisms offline and bring them into competition. One of the better ways to keep iterating and refining these mechanisms is to build a second robot and steadily improve it after bag day. It's not so much skirting of the rules, just making use of the witholding allowance rule.

I've always been under the assumption that design is an iterative process, correct me if I'm wrong. Eliminating a withholding allowance kind of downplays the importance of iterative design. How else do I apply the lessons I learned at my week 1 regional when I'm unbagging my robot from week 5? It's not like I can fabricate everything needed using the crowded machining center at the regional.

[Brandon_L]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

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

You don't need to be in the "haves" club to take advantage of the 45lb, or 30lb, or any withholding allowance. I wouldn't place us in the "haves" group of teams, more fortunate then others, sure, but not a "have". What did we do before bagging? Popped off an inconsistent intake to hopefully make it better by the time competitions roll around. You don't need a CNC mill and a $10,000 budget to pop a few screws off something you want to make better before you put the robot in its bag. Any team can do that. You just need the will to want to do better.

Do we build a practice robot? no. Could we? Maybe, maybe not. We never tried it. We just don't have the people, time, or money for it. Lack of resources is something we as a team have to recognize, deal with, and overcome. Unless FIRST wants to throw money and machining resources around, working within your limits is something teams have to master to succeed. To the teams who decided to build a practice robot: Congratulations. It is within your limits to do so, and you see it as worthwhile to spend your resources on. I see nothing wrong with this. If I were in a position to do so, I would do the same exact thing. As a team that does not build a practice robot, do I see this as unfair? No, not really. If it floats your boat then more power to you. It just makes me want to push harder to succeed over you. One of the most important lessons I try to teach on 2495 is perseverance, to never give up. Especially when you get your ro-butt handed to you by some fancy powder-coated CNC'd machine. You can sit there and complain that they cheat the system with their practice robot or you can try to manipulate our available resources to outsmart them. After complaining about teams like that myself for quite some time in earlier seasons, I think after the last few years I like the active approach much, much more.

[Alan Anderson]

I wonder if team size correlates with attitude about the Stop Build Deadline. Larger teams can have more students actively involved with building a robot if they build two of them. Smaller teams might lack the manpower to build a practice robot before bag day. I'm just not sure how best to craft a survey in order to get useful data.

[DanielPlotas]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

I wonder if team size correlates with attitude about the Stop Build Deadline. Larger teams can have more students actively involved with building a robot if they build two of them. Smaller teams might lack the manpower to build a practice robot before bag day. I'm just not sure how best to craft a survey in order to get useful data.

we effectively have three people working the entire six weeks, so we have absolutely no chance of building another one unless we completely finish the first one in about four weeks.

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by Brandon_L

You don't need to be in the "haves" club to take advantage of the 45lb, or 30lb, or any withholding allowance. I wouldn't place us in the "haves" group of teams, more fortunate then others, sure, but not a "have". What did we do before bagging? Popped off an inconsistent intake to hopefully make it better by the time competitions roll around. You don't need a CNC mill and a $10,000 budget to pop a few screws off something you want to make better before you put the robot in its bag. Any team can do that. You just need the will to want to do better.

Do we build a practice robot? no. Could we? Maybe, maybe not. We never tried it. We just don't have the people, time, or money for it. Lack of resources is something we as a team have to recognize, deal with, and overcome. Unless FIRST wants to throw money and machining resources around, working within your limits is something teams have to master to succeed. To the teams who decided to build a practice robot: Congratulations. It is within your limits to do so, and you see it as worthwhile to spend your resources on. I see nothing wrong with this. If I were in a position to do so, I would do the same exact thing. As a team that does not build a practice robot, do I see this as unfair? No, not really. If it floats your boat then more power to you. It just makes me want to push harder to succeed over you. One of the most important lessons I try to teach on 2495 is perseverance, to never give up. Especially when you get your ro-butt handed to you by some fancy powder-coated CNC'd machine. You can sit there and complain that they cheat the system with their practice robot or you can try to manipulate our available resources to outsmart them. After complaining about teams like that myself for quite some time in earlier years, I think after the last few seasons I like the active answer much, much more.

Just to add onto this - it really is about hard work and allocating your resources. Having worked with 11 and 2495, teams with very different resources, it was clear to me that almost any team can accomplish a certain level of success if they put in the time. 11 has many sponsors, many machines, and a lot of man power. 2495 has the exact opposite, all in addition to being in a terrible school near Trenton. In 2012, $500 was a good robot budget for us. The next year, it was increased to about $1000. There's literally nothing stopping any team from using the 45 pounds, so I don't get what the issue is.

Additionally, we have found that having the district model and the unbagging rules, in addition to the withholding allowance, has really made it a lot easier for us to compete at a much higher level, and close to some teams who do create a 2nd robot. There's teams who build practice robots but still manage to be pretty mediocre.

[MrForbes]

Originally Posted by Brandon_L

You just need the will to want to do better.

I think that is "big thing".

We don't seem to have that will, so we finish our robot and do other stuff for a few weeks, until the regional competition. Sometimes we do well at the competition, other times we don't. Life goes on.

[Rob Stehlik]

This is an interesting debate that seems to be ongoing. Since 610 was mentioned here as an exception to the rule, I thought I would chime in.

Back in 2011 we built a practice robot. It was our first year with our CNC router, so we thought it was doable. Unfortunately the new machine wasn't as magic as we hoped, and it took a huge amount of time to build two robots. After putting in all of that extra work, I'm not even sure we benefited much from the practice robot. Our autonomous code that worked on the practice robot didn't work at competition. Our drivers didn't even get a lot of practice time since they were away on outreach trips and march break. The time between build season and regionals is very busy at our school, so there isn't much reason to build a second robot.

After that, I swore off practice robots. I see them as a waste of time and money. That doesn't stop our students from asking me to build one every year, but until our situation changes drastically, I refuse to consider it. We work hard during build season, making the most of the time we have. Then we stop. It's a conscious decision.

You don't need a second robot to be competitive.