What was there before AndyMark?

[EricH]

Originally Posted by geomapguy

I remember reading that teams HAD to get their stuff from Small Parts Inc. aka Amazon Supply..


But mostly teams machined a lot and the average robot wasn't as good as they are today

I was there! Not quite.

Small Parts became non-required in the very late 1990s/early 2000s, when they simply could not keep up with the number of teams. Simultaneously, the "prohibited materials" list grew very short. (Would you believe.... Titanium was once explicitly banned?) The "had to" was before my time actually on a team, I admit, but I remember seeing the Small Parts booth at a couple of events.

Anyways, before AndyMark, all teams got a 2-speed shifting transmission in the kit, or rather two of 'em. Two drill motor transmissions with motors, to be exact. And yes, teams did have to machine a lot to do anything. Many of the dominating teams today got their start back then, or before, and can remember that. (The kit frame was simply huge aluminum extrusion, cut to length. No joke.) IFI did provide a controller... but no robot parts.

Then came 2005. No drill motors in the kit, but 2 extra CIMs were allowed for the first time. Add in the IFI-provided Kitbot, and the Kitbot Transmission (1-speed, roughly the equivalent of the Toughbox), which as I recall was a joint effort between AndyMark and a couple other folks, and then you get AndyMark joining in with their Gen1 shifters...

The FRC world would never be the same.

[sanddrag]

If I recall, teams could only purchase materials from Small Parts, and were limited to a very short list of other allowed materials up through the 2002 season. For example, you could not purchase gears from any source other than Small Parts. In 2003, the short "materials allowed" list became a modest "materials prohibited" list.

Before AndyMark, teams had to actually THINK and design and fabricate things. Teams such as 716 and 45 published whitepapers on how to make shifting transmissions. Teams intricately studied the details of each other's designs, rather than waking up and blindly asking dumb questions like "how many wheels does your robot have?"

It was a very different era, and some elements of it are certainly missed. As limited as it was, I do miss the old Small Parts and their old catalog. It may have been very over priced, and I probably didn't buy much, but they had some neat unique items.

Now back to the modern day, what I can't figure out, is you can essentially buy a very competitive robot, with the right combination of parts, but a very large percentage of teams still produce very poor robots, many of which are incapable of assisting their alliance or scoring any points at all. What gives?

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

Now back to the modern day, what I can't figure out, is you can essentially buy a very competitive robot, with the right combination of parts, but a very large percentage of teams still produce very poor robots, many of which are incapable of assisting their alliance or scoring any points at all. What gives?

There's no essentially. Justin Foss often brags that 558's robots (which won 2 districts this year) are made almost exclusively from COTS parts. There's a reason any time I need to find something on McMaster that's who I ask first.

I have theories to answer your question but this is neither the time nor the place.

[kevin.li.rit]

We can try and remember when andymark was started or we can look it up on the website.

http://www.andymark.com/aboutus.asp

[jwfoss]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

There's no essentially. Justin Foss often brags that 558's robots (which won 2 districts this year) are made almost exclusively from COTS parts. There's a reason any time I need to find something on McMaster that's who I ask first.

I wouldn't jump straight to brag, but we are proud of what we are able to accomplish within our resources. FRC558 works from a decent sized build area with only a hand tools, drill press, band saw, belt sander, and drum sander. Building within a teams real resources is one of the hardest things for a team to learn to do. We operate under a couple of mottos on the design side of the team:

"Steal from the best, design the rest" (draw inspiration from what you've seen work and integrate with your design)
"Why build what you can buy?" (within reason)

There is plenty of innovation to be had with COTS parts. Part integration and using products for things they were not originally intended are found on machines every year, if you just take the time to look and talk to teams about it.

[Gdeaver]

I still have a small parts catalog from the 2000 season somewhere. Have to dig it out to remember just how limited it was. Back then we kludged a robot. Today we lead an engineering design build project. What a change.

[magnets]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

If I recall, teams could only purchase materials from Small Parts, and were limited to a very short list of other allowed materials up through the 2002 season. For example, you could not purchase gears from any source other than Small Parts. In 2003, the short "materials allowed" list became a modest "materials prohibited" list.

Before AndyMark, teams had to actually THINK and design and fabricate things. Teams such as 716 and 45 published whitepapers on how to make shifting transmissions. Teams intricately studied the details of each other's designs, rather than waking up and blindly asking dumb questions like "how many wheels does your robot have?"

It was a very different era, and some elements of it are certainly missed. As limited as it was, I do miss the old Small Parts and their old catalog. It may have been very over priced, and I probably didn't buy much, but they had some neat unique items.

Now back to the modern day, what I can't figure out, is you can essentially buy a very competitive robot, with the right combination of parts, but a very large percentage of teams still produce very poor robots, many of which are incapable of assisting their alliance or scoring any points at all. What gives?

I swear, if another person comes to our robot and asks "How many/what type of wheels does your robot have" without even trying to look at the poster we have hanging in the front of our pit or our robot itself, I'm going to go crazy. You bring up an excellent point about the COTS vs. old style stuff. Wildstang used to build the coolest things ever (swerve, arms, swerve modules that went up and down in 04....), and it seems that these sort of super complicated well engineered parts aren't becoming more common.

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by magnets

Wildstang used to build the coolest things ever (swerve, arms, swerve modules that went up and down in 04....), and it seems that these sort of super complicated well engineered parts aren't becoming more common.

I think quite the opposite, there are so many teams doing so many cool things that you can longer just point to Wildstang as being the only cool one!

JVN had a great point in this thread.

Originally Posted by JVN

I watched a bunch of old matches the other day with my students. It is surprising to me how badly these games have aged. Robots are slow and clunky. Things which I remember being incredible now seem ho-hum. I personally wouldn't want to go back to that level of performance.

[geomapguy]

Interesting picture
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/25316

[fox46]

Ahh- the dark ages... I remember installing servos to drill gearboxes and boasting about having "two speed" transmissions! Back then you really had to be innovative in your designs to even make things work. Taking a motor spinning at 20kRPM and somehow getting it down to a speed and torque that could be used was often the pinnacle of your machine's design, especially if your team was short on mentors. My rookie year doing FIRST I remember our team U-bolted drill motors to our frame and used chains to drive our wheels- we had no idea what "side load" meant and paid the price throwing chains every match

Things are much easier now. With just a little money you can log onto VEX or AM, find what you need in the gear ratio of your choice and in a couple days you've got a mechanism running. Sometimes I really do think things are too easy these days. The sort of problem solving and creative thought that used to go into designing a gearbox for a mechanism is somewhat lost.

Any Canadians on here remember Canada First? (Canadian spinoff of FIRST before they crossed the border)

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by fox46

Any Canadians on here remember Canada First? (Canadian spinoff of FIRST before they crossed the border)

I remember hearing about it, often in a negative light. 188 spent a few years in that competition before becoming the first FRC team in Canada in 1998. (See here for details.)

On the bright side, test-driving Woburn's 1997 robot was a major factor in getting me to join the team.

[fox46]

I remember hearing about it, often in a negative light.

Yup, "negative" would be accurate- that thread pretty much covers all the bases. I don't believe they were affiliated with FIRST at all. Unfortunately for Canadian teams who couldn't afford to travel to the states, it was all there was back then and although it wasn't nearly as well-run or set up as FIRST, it did serve to inspire and motivate many youth in its day.

[JamesCH95]

At first, there was nothing.

And then Andy said: let there be decent COTS parts for FIRST!

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by JamesCH95

At first, there was nothing.

And then Andy said: let there be decent COTS parts for FIRST!

And somehow we still got the 2007 KOP transmissions...

(They were from BB)

[JamesCH95]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

And somehow we still got the 2007 KOP transmissions...

(They were from BB)

We all make mistakes