2015 Lessons Learned: The Positive

[Caleb Sykes]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

What did you particularly enjoy about FIRST this year?

The new wildcard rules.

However, if they had anything to do with the championsplit, which I'm guessing they did, I'm not a fan.

[stens987]

The 4th bot at champs was a nice option and fun to strategize!

[DampRobot]

I didn't play this game, but it seems like if you had a good robot, you could consistently seed high. This is amazing, considering last year it felt like I was banging my head against a wall of bad partners. There was also no defense related carnage.

Also, bad calls from officials were not really a thing this year (well, at least compared to last year).

[trumpthero786]

Originally Posted by mrnoble

The referees generally don't need services for PTSD as a result of their volunteer work this year, unlike 2014.

I don't know... Noodles to the face can be frightening

[Sunshine]

Lack of size restriction on the field. Hope this stays.

[Michael Hill]

Our team had a lot of firsts this year.

• We were able to successfully implement a slide drive with only 1 wheel in the back.
• We developed a strong drivebase with 0.050 Aluminum (2024-T3)
• We drove with belts for the first time
• We used live axle for the first time
• Used built an elevator for the first time (Thanks Adam Heard and the guys from 971 for posting CAD and providing some inspiration for our elevator. R3 bearings were great [until the broke after a couple competitions])
• First scissor mechanism on the robot (still not sure I was a fan of it)
• Designed and built our first (and second) gearboxes.
• Successfully implemented some 3D printed parts (Camera mount, pneumatic tank mount, constant force sprint spindle)
• Were able to not have a single inch of chain on the robot for the first time. (only belt, pneumatic and lead screw)
• Were able to build an extremely low profile drivebase (everything within 2.75 inches from the carpet).

On the other hand, there are some things we need to do better.

• Build faster and better prototypes
• Not overload machines as much as we are (rely more on COTS parts)
• Finish design faster
• Get back to using PDM (No PDM this year was a disaster)
• Finish mechanical build quicker so software team can get more time to do things like control loop tuning and autonomous
• Build certain parts to a tighter tolerance. We had to rebuild some axles because they were too short.
• Too much reliance on snap rings to stop axial movement. We designed the drive so the bearings so their flanges were on the outside and retained by a snap ring. Unfortunately, snap rings came off and we had to resort to drilling/tapping and putting a bolt with a washer on to keep the bearing retained. Ideally we would have swapped the way the bearings were inserted into the drive, but we were too far along in our build and didn't have enough room in the wheel channel to allow for the extra 1/8 from the flanges of 2 bearings.

[Jared Russell]

• 8 alliance Einstein was awesome.
• It was cool to see some very effective robots from outside of North America throughout the event and on Einstein.
• The game presented some interesting technical challenges during design and build.
• Great diversity in robot design this year owing to liberal sizing rules.
• The rules were for the most part very well written and there were few ambiguities compared to other recent seasons.
• The conference portion of the Championship event had some really interesting talks and I think many teams found it useful.
• Using Qualifying Average as the first order sort seemed to work well at seeding teams according to their ability, as long as the number of matches was sufficient.
• Despite the number of teams and general level of crowding, the volunteer staff was able to adjust on the fly to fix traffic jams and chokepoints, and helped to cope with the scale of the event over the course of the weekend.

[Koko Ed]

I Love! LOVE! LOOOOVE! having 8 divisions and eight alliances on Einstein! It was so much fun and so exciting. I wish FIRST would do this forever!

This year may not have had the best game but these were some of the coolest robots I have ever seen produced!

Volunteer food was awesome at most of the events I attended.

I have nothing but total love for my fellow volunteers. There is no one else I would willful permanently damage my body through will self imposed torture than every single one of you! I miss all of you guys already and I can't wait to see you in the off season!

[mrgoldtech]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

I Love! LOVE! LOOOOVE! having 8 divisions and eight alliances on Einstein! It was so much fun and so exciting. I wish FIRST would do this forever!

I also love the new fields! I especially love the scientists they chose to honor, such as Grace Hopper and Nikola Tesla!

[dudefise]

The new rules allowed a lot of new and unique designs, some totally out-of-the-box.

Teams could focus on precision rather than brute force, leading to more elegant designs and driving.

Using average scores in Qualifying helped make seeding more accurate (though I disagree with its use in Elim, also defense would make this difficult)

Wildcard rules good for many teams attending events with several "powerhouses", allows more good but not quite dominant teams to make WC.

[Qbot2640]

The later start for practice matches at Regionals made Thursday a much more effective day - you could actually make the changes or fine-tunings you needed to, without worrying about missing practice matches.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Qbot2640

The later start for practice matches at Regionals made Thursday a much more effective day - you could actually make the changes or fine-tunings you needed to, without worrying about missing practice matches.

And from an inspection/ref standpoint, we actually had TIME to get people to their matches, get any briefing/training out of the way, and more to the point, there were an awful lot of robots out there with colorful stickers in the first or second match... that stayed for the third or fourth... You get the picture.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

I Love! LOVE! LOOOOVE! having 8 divisions and eight alliances on Einstein!

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

It was so much fun and so exciting. I wish FIRST would do this forever!

I think the shock to the system in terms of robot design paradigms was a net positive. I like that we're now being kept on our toes the next couple of years in this department. There were elements of the game this year that are worthy of being placed into the melting pot of FRC game design, whether or not a full concept similar to Recycle Rush should ever see the light of day again (Magic 8-Ball says: No, pls)

Growth of the district model is also a good thing. Like with robot design, game design, or team building, it will still come down to execution.

Personally on 422 we removed a lot of negative influences that caused some short term negative effects on performance but will enable us to be a stronger organization in the long term. We didn't play as well as we did last year but everyone finished the season with higher spirits and with stronger determination than last year, and that outweighs the negatives out of my control.

[buchanan]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

I actually liked the game, and the lack of defense. It allowed my team to take risks in the design and manufacture of our machine, that we would not have in any previous game. This years rules created a type of game play where there was a heavy focus on the mechanisms, and we were able to get back to a real engineering challenge rather than just crashing boxes on wheels into each other. This game more closely modeled industrial automation applications than most games of years past, and for that reason, I like it.

I agree 100%. Engineering is fun and exciting. It does not need to be shoehorned into the contact sport model to be made so.

Yes, making a robust, survivable robot is an engineering challenge too, but it's a relatively low order one, and tends to be the same from one year to the next. This year was a rare opportunity to devote a greater portion of our energy and creativity to challenges unique to this particular game.

[cmrnpizzo14]

I think that this game was necessary for FIRST. Over the past several years teams have been getting more and more "ordinary". Partially due to Ri3D as well as the general increased resources for teams, many teams have been settling for "just good enough". I think that this year forced teams to reconsider many of their options with the lack of size constraints, bumpers, etc.

Hopefully this trend will continue, regardless of the game in the future. I really enjoyed seeing the designs this year.