Why do we bother bagging?

[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.