Why do we bother bagging?

[Duncan Macdonald]

Please don't interpret this as an attack but I feel you have made many statements in this thread without fully supporting them.

Originally Posted by Racer26

So:

I've taken the 2008 OPR's for Maryland from this Excel file: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/2761

and Compared them with the Median Household Income by ZIP code for each of the teams I could find OPR data for in Maryland in 2008 from here: http://www.psc.isr.umich.edu/dis/cen...zip/index.html

Since the OPR's in that Excel were normalized and many are negative, I added 2 to them so that they were all positive.

Attachment 16343

I can see no particular trend one way or the other that greater socioeconomic status of a team's location correlates to better on-field performance. This is assuming we agree that in 2008, OPR was a good metric for performance, and that the median household income of a team's ZIP is a good metric for the socioeconomic status of a region.

Every teacher I've ever had would give you at most half credit for not labelling your axises. To the best of my interpretation your sample size is 26 teams in a single year. Why did you choose Maryland? Do you think factors like years of experience or that individuals on those teams might be completely masking any meaningful correlation? (We've seen what team Copioli made in 3 days using some drills and extrusion.) Would you mind sharing your data analysis experience?

I'm for this study to be completed seeing as it has the potential to effect actual funding.

Originally Posted by FIRST Robotics Canada

FIRST Canada is very fortunate to be working with Queen's University who is doing an arms length study for us on the effectiveness and benefits of the FIRST program . This study will be used to help with government and corporate funding submissions. In the past these funds have been used to support teams, events and scholarships. WE NEED YOUR HELP! http://queensu.fluidsurveys.com/surv...mentor-survey/

Originally Posted by Racer26

The thing with this argument is that usually, people make it as a way of saying "Those teams that are always at the top? We could beat them if only we were given more time.", completely forgetting that the only way to give you more time fairly is to ALSO give the powerhouse teams more time. Those powerhouse teams? They're already making better use of the time they're given than the complaining teams, that's why they're powerhouses. Giving them more time will only serve to make the performance gap bigger, not smaller.

Do you not believe in diminishing returns? How much better do you expect 118 or 148 to get if the build season was lengthened?

[timytamy]

I've been through most of the discussion, but I haven't found anyone who has brought up the topic of international teams.

For arguments sake, if there were no bagging restrictions: From Australia, we must ship at least a week before the regional, as the robot is next to useless if it's not in the right country. When we attended a week one regional, we actually had to cut a few days off our build season, to ensure the robot made it.

In terms of resources, the vast majority of our budget is spent on travel. We prioritizes taking as many students to a regional, which means that a lot of [robot] options are closed off to us. For many international teams, the cost of attending a regional can be orders of magnitude more than the actual robot. The only viable solution [that I can think of] is to get enough teams to have our own regional, but that is still at least a year off [in Australia]

Up until this season, our mechanical lab has been no larger than a shipping container, even with this, last year we built a practice robot (although it was built almost completely AFTER stop build day), and in comp we came to three points from getting to the finals. I suppose this supports the anecdotal data that you don't need massive resources to build a competitive robot.

All said, I'm not sure what the best solution is, but it certainly is complicated...

[Adam Freeman]

Originally Posted by bduddy

There's so much more FIRST can and should be doing, and just pointing to the mission statement isn't a very good argument to begin with.

I did not say that every team should only do what the FIRST mission statement says. That is up to each individual team to decide how they want to pursue their goals. But it still is the mission statement or "ultimate goal" as stated in the post I referenced previously.

We follow our interpretation of it and set our goals for how and what we want our students to get out of the program. I think we do a decent job at it, both on and off the field.

If other teams have different priorities, more power to them. That is their choice as to what they want to emphasize.

1) Eliminate exact replica practice bots

or
1) restrict modifications that can be made to competition bot, gained from practice bot from the period between "bag/Tag" and competition.

2) Restrict modifications gained from multi regional/district competitions

3) Systems specification (Mechanical/ Programming) : teams would submit a Robot Specification along with bag and Tag.

4) Restrict holdback to 24lbs. or 20% of robot weight.

5) extend the build for one week, programming/practice purposes only.

[Racer26]

Originally Posted by Duncan Macdonald

Every teacher I've ever had would give you at most half credit for not labelling your axises. To the best of my interpretation your sample size is 26 teams in a single year. Why did you choose Maryland?

I was rushing to create it in a short break from my day job. I was merely trying to create a visualization of the data, and with the information I gave with it, its easy to figure out what the graph shows.

I agree a sample size of 26 teams is not enough to make a conclusive argument, but it certainly appears to be evidence that there is only a very limited correlation between socioeconomic status of a team's area and their success on field, which is all I was trying to do. I was asked for evidence of my theory, so I delivered some.

I used Maryland, because the person asking for the data was from there, and I know Maryland is a medium sized area for FRC (so I could quickly process the data). Choosing Delaware would have made the data useless (there's only 2 or 3 teams there AFAIK) and choosing Michigan would have taken prohibitively long to process for the time I had. I didn't use Canada because I don't know of any data for median income by postal code.

Originally Posted by Duncan Macdonald

Do you think factors like years of experience or that individuals on those teams might be completely masking any meaningful correlation? (We've seen what team Copioli made in 3 days using some drills and extrusion.) Would you mind sharing your data analysis experience?

Certainly I think those factors impact the data, but there aren't many 2056s or 1114s in any particular area, and powerhouses don't seem to hail from a particular end of the socioeconomic spectrum, so I would say that with a large enough data set, it would have limited impact on the average.

While doing this exercise, I noticed that of the team numbers I recognized from Maryland as being successful enough teams that I've heard of them, many were from lower income ZIP codes. Hard to tell if that is just an artifact of my sample size though.

Originally Posted by Duncan Macdonald

Do you not believe in diminishing returns? How much better do you expect 118 or 148 to get if the build season was lengthened?

Certainly diminishing returns are a thing. My only really good frame of reference though, is watching 1114 and 2056. What I see there? Every year, 1114 doesn't make it to their practice matches much on the first day of their first regional, because they're busy toiling away applying everything learned between ship and competition on the practice bot to the competition robot. That tells me a longer build season would still benefit them.

To the other points being made in this thread, particularly the ones about raising the bar, instead of trying to drag down the superstars? The other really cool thing about FRC is that the superstars are for the most part eager to help. Go talk to them, and they'll help you to be more like them.

[Chris is me]

On the side discussion: looking at a single event in a single year is a terrible way to establish a trend or lack thereof. It's not good data. How about this: Take a sample of teams with different global OPR ranks and compare them to median income of their home city. See what the general trend is. This data won't prove anything about the sturcture of FRC being flawed, but I bet you would get a nice linear fit. Don't pick a single state or region.

On practice bots: Anyone who wants to keep saying or implying that practice bots take minimal extra effort and just require money can go ahead and talk to my team full of exhausted students, teachers, and mentors. The extra budget (I'd guess $2000 more) is nothing compared to literally doubling your entire workload. Anybody who pulls off the feat of doing twice the build work in six weeks has earned it.

Don't get me started on how your team is "incapable" of building a practice robot, and thus you have to stifle anyone who worked their butts off to make one. First of all, you could always build two less capable, simpler robots. You would have a more competitive season than the single "do everything" doohickey you likely have now. Second, what's less inspiring then telling a team of kids "yeah, I know you want to work extra hard to achieve excellence, but we have to hold ourselves back to match other teams effort"?

[Monochron]

Originally Posted by Adam Freeman

Actually, the ultimate goal of FIRST is to inspire students to pursue a STEM related higher education, so they can become competent and impassioned STEM professionals...thus bettering the entire world.

I intended to put STEM in that sentence of mine but, now that you mention it, I am fairly certain that FIRST's goal includes shaping professionals of all disciplines.

But to my point, proxy robot's are very useful, and they likely do a lot to help your team be great, I just don't think it conforms with the spirit of "build season" which has existed since FIRST's inception.

[Monochron]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Don't get me started on how your team is "incapable" of building a practice robot, and thus you have to stifle anyone who worked their butts off to make one. First of all, you could always build two less capable, simpler robots. You would have a more competitive season than the single "do everything" doohickey you likely have now. Second, what's less inspiring then telling a team of kids "yeah, I know you want to work extra hard to achieve excellence, but we have to hold ourselves back to match other teams effort"?

I'm sorry to "get you started" but many teams literally do not have the resources/money. It isn't always a matter of just putting in more hard work. And that last bit there is really making a lot of assumptions that are only going to apply to some teams. Working extra hard to achieve excellence has NOTHING to do with building multiple robots; you can put that energy into more prototypes, a more modular design, higher goals, etc. And the fact that you would be limited to off-bot work after Stop Build day engenders more creativity in the way you do that work.

I'm not saying that disallowing proxy bots is the objective better way in all situations to inspire students, I'm just saying that is has some really great merits and seems much more true to the spirit of FIRST. I think it would make the competition more of a factor of how well and how efficiently you can work in 6 weeks.

[Brian C]

An interesting discussion for sure.

My 2 cents:

Back in 1999 when Lassie was still a puppy we got started in FIRST with team 311. That year there were 8 Regionals in TOTAL. Not in just in one weekend and then Champioships.

The team signed up built a robot for “Double Trouble” and off we went to Philadelphia for the Regional.

When we got there we uncrated and started making last minute adjustments to our machine. That’s when we noticed many other teams taking apart their machines and installing different mechanisms. Being Rookies we realized later that they were installing upgrades based on information they had found out from attending a prior Regional.

Thinking back to that first FIRST competition for us, we did not perform well overall but we sure learned a lot about what to do and what not to do. 15 years later working with teams we still follow some of the basic things we learned on that trip and from very year since then.

OK enough ancient history.

Look at FIRST robotics, Bag & Tag and the differences between the “have” and “have not” teams as a reflection of real life:

There will always be teams/companies/people with MORE resources than you have. Aspire to be like them IF they are indeed good role models.

In real life not everyone that wins or is good at something is a good role model.

There will always be other with LESS resources than you. Reach out to them and Inspire them to learn and grow.

In both your personal and business life there will always be the have’s and have not’s . The answer to this is to make the best use of whatever resources you have.

If you want to build cars and be like FORD. Great, but it takes time. Nobody ever started at the top.

Just ask Elon Musk!

Do you think Dean Kamen started where he is now? Do a little research and find out how long he’s been inventing, how he started as a teen in Rockville Centre NY. What he initially designed and built to fund what he REALLY wanted to do.

It’s OK to be frustrated when you think that life, or a competition isn’t fair. But instead of taking a stance of “let’s change the rules” as your only suggestion.

Take a line from another successful organization:

Improvise, adapt and overcome. *

In the end you will be better for it.





* USMC

[Racer26]

Originally Posted by Brian C

Back in 1999 when Lassie was still a puppy we got started in FIRST with team 311. That year there were 9 Regionals in TOTAL. Not in just in one weekend and No Championships. Champioships came along later.

Sorry, but you're wrong. Championship has been around since at least 1995: http://www.usfirst.org/whats-going-o...rogramCode=FRC

And there were 8 regionals in 1999, plus the Championship for 9 events total.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Trouble_(FIRST)

[Brian C]

Originally Posted by Racer26

Sorry, but you're wrong. Championship has been around since at least 1995: http://www.usfirst.org/whats-going-o...rogramCode=FRC

And there were 8 regionals in 1999, plus the Championship for 9 events total.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Trouble_(FIRST)

Fixed! Thanks for the reminder. My CRS kicks in sometimes...

I like how YOU had to go to Wikipedia though.

Knowing where to look things up IS important!!

[Racer26]

Originally Posted by Brian C

Fixed! Thanks for the reminder. My CRS kicks in sometimes...

I like how YOU had to go to Wikipedia though.

Knowing where to look things up IS important!!

Heh. To be fair, I wasn't around until 2003, so it would be hard for me to remember what the landscape was like in 1999.

[Mark McLeod]

I call it a tie.

Try not to use Wikipedia as a source.
That article seems to have errors and the source links are mostly broken.

Does anyone have first source evidence of any event in 1999 at

FIRST Southwest Open - Space Center Houston, Houston, TX

One was originally talked about, but I don't believe that it ever materialized.

Here's the FIRST website from the Internet Archive listing the events for that year.

Due to low team registration, the 1999 FIRST Southwest Regional in Houston, TX has been cancelled.

[Pault]

Originally Posted by DMike

1) Eliminate exact replica practice bots

or
1) restrict modifications that can be made to competition bot, gained from practice bot from the period between "bag/Tag" and competition.

2) Restrict modifications gained from multi regional/district competitions

3) Systems specification (Mechanical/ Programming) : teams would submit a Robot Specification along with bag and Tag.

4) Restrict holdback to 24lbs. or 20% of robot weight.

5) extend the build for one week, programming/practice purposes only.

If your going to advocate for such extreme changes, at least try to provide your reasoning. Just writing down this list isn't really helping the discussion. I would be interested to hear why you think so.


I am still on the fence with this issue, but I will say this: just because something is more fair doesn't mean it's better. If a little bit of unfrairness helps FIRST to better achieve its goals, than it is a good thing.

How this plays into the issue at hand, I am still not sure. Maybe the unfairness of bag and tag (if it even is unfair) is deterring students from persuing STEM carreers. But fairness in and of itself is not a justification for anything in my eyes.

[Michael Corsetto]

Originally Posted by Adam Freeman

Back on the original subject (ie; bagging) our team worked tonight and probably will be continuing our regular build schedule for practice, spare parts, iteration, etc...up until we atleast play our first district event. Then we will see what additional work is required to continue improving to obtain our goals. Bagging after 6 weeks or not, does not change the process we follow, it just make it more of a hassle to do them once on a practice bot then again on the competition bot.

For our team, we want to inspire through success first and foremost (inspiring through failure when we have too).

This process works for us. What works for you, is for you to decide.

+1

I would welcome some of the well thought out improvements from IKE in this post. Until then though, we have found a process that works for us and is a huge benefit to our students.

It also happens to be a lot of work (shhh, keep this between us, but I think the students working hard is the best part of FIRST )

-Mike