Dealing with robotics regrets

[Ginger Bread]

Only regret from my rookie and only season so far: fork lift

[Munchskull]

Originally Posted by Ginger Bread

Only regret from my rookie and only season so far: fork lift

I feel you man, my biggest regrets are:

1.this years elevator design

2.not making a Frisbee shooter in 2013

[BrendanB]

The usual robot related stuff like over valuing the ability to cap an existing six stack with an RC that made our robot a jack of all trades and master of none.

While I was mentoring a team I really regret losing focus on what this is all about. Having a competitive spirit is good and winning can lead to inspiration on its own, but that competitive side can really put a damper on the ability to work with students. There's a thread that usually comes around every once and a while about mentoring fresh out of high school. If you decide to take that road (and let's keep that discussion in those threads), really ask yourself and more experienced mentors/adults around you, "How can I be a better mentor for the students?" I wish I did.

Regardless. Learn and move on. You can never take something back or go back in time. Consider how you can prevent it from happening moving forward and remember those mistakes when you come across similar circumstances.

[Ryan Dognaux]

Learn from your mistakes and move forward. That's what I try to do every year.

I've made questionable calls as a drive coach that I still think about. I'll never forget telling our 2014 drive team to go for another high goal shot when a low goal would have secured the match and turned the St. Louis regional rankings upside down (Link: http://www.thebluealliance.com/match/2014mosl_qm80 Sorry 1658 & 2408) I've watched that match video more times than I'd like to admit.

As many have said, you get better through experience. FRC isn't easy. The fact that you are worried about what you did wrong is actually a great thing. It means you want to improve - now the trick is figuring out how to do that. Focusing on one or two things each year is a good way to start, depending on your team size. If you get a little better each year soon enough your team will be great.

[Munchskull]

Originally Posted by Ryan Dognaux

As many have said, you get better through experience. FRC isn't easy. The fact that you are worried about what you did wrong is actually a great thing. It means you want to improve - now the trick is figuring out how to do that. Focusing on one or two things each year is a good way to start, depending on your team size. If you get a little better each year soon enough your team will be great.

I think one of the harder parts about FRC and improving is that many of us use build season as a metric for improvement. This becomes a problem because buildseason is only once a year and so you don't get the instant feedback that people like to have.

[Ryan Dognaux]

Originally Posted by Munchskull

I think one of the harder parts about FRC and improving is that many of us use build season as a metric for improvement. This becomes a problem because buildseason is only once a year and so you don't get the instant feedback that people like to have.

You should use the entire year to judge improvement. Build season is the test, the time to apply your knowledge that you've gained over the off-season and from previous seasons. Grade how your build season went and realize that studying and preparing for it will often make it go a lot smoother. Very few can just show up to the test without preparing and ace it

[Mitchell1714]

The one experience I still have some regrets on is 2013. Our team built a well designed 50 point corner climber, which actually did work very well. My regret was not pushing harder for a corner climber that could carry 2 other robots up with it. It probably would have failed epically but I can't help but think we could have been one of the best robots in FRC.

[Rman1923]

In my mind, there isn't anything to regret when you fail during the season. It's all a lesson. For instance, our 2014 season, not gonna lie, was crap. The manipulator (Four marshmallow wheel shooter) was actually really good and the standard 6 tread traction wheel drive was fine, but the combo of both was deadly (for us). We actually did amazing in our first competition (Mt. Olive District) or for at least the first day. because we had a drop in our DT, every time we angled our shooter with the piston, the whole robot rocked back and forth. This is fine when we were stationary and shooting, because we'd wait for the rocking to stop and then shoot when ready, but during day 2, teams figured out that we can't play at all against defense or shoot while driving. So we got stuffed the second day and we learned a lot. The main problem of the season though, was we didn't know when to stop modifying. we changed the intake so it could intake faster and at wider angles, which ended up not working. we also made several small adjustments so that we could try to shoot and drive, but they were sorta unreliable and I can't honestly say they worked well. At the end of our season we had a bot with several things added to it and kinda rachet honestly and it didn't work too well. So for the 2015 season we designed a new ten-wheel drive (during off-season) that stayed flat so there was no possibility of rocking. We also agreed we wouldn't use drive-in-a-day (it showed up week three last build season) and that we would exclusively use VEX and versaFrame. So we fixed the rachetness issues as well as the drive train issues. We also built a more robust robot that wouldn't need too many fixes or mods from the get go. The major thing we did was change team culture and rules so that modifications had to be reviewed by both the mentors and students before they could go on. All of this contributed to the success of this season. We wouldn't have made SF in TVR or Mt. Olive and we wouldn't have been QF in MARCMP and North Brunswick had it not been for this overhaul. And we keep learning through the season. in the beginning we could maybe do some 5 stacks on the platform. But by the end of comp season (including IRI) we were able to do three stacks of six with noodled cans even after Can-burgling (third fastest in the world).

TL;DR: My main point is that regrets in robotics are your curriculum. They are they way teams get better and no team hasn't messed up before. Without these teaching moments, I honestly can't say that we would've been this successful and I honestly can't say I would've had so much fun building the robot. These regrets teach you to out-smart challenges and engineer something better.

[pandamonium]

Fail Often, Fail Fast, Fail Cheap. Failure does not lead to regrets. Not failing enough, early enough, and especially when there is low risk is from my experience what leads to regrets. As I plan the year I try to create failure opportunities and learning experiences in pre season.

[safiq10]

I have a tendency to point out really important things that somehow end up as major game changers, but I guess out lack of confidence in my ideas or someway or another the idea never gets put forward and I end regretting it later on.

2013- My freshman year I drew a sketch of a robot that looked like an exact replica of 148's robot. When I got to the Dallas regional, I was amazed that they pulled off what I dissed as a crazy Idea.

2014- I was strategizing on the car ride to Dallas, I thought about skipping the high goal and racking up cycles by a 3 assist and low goal, but I later dissmissed the idea cause I once again convinced myself it wasn't a good idea.

2015- Right after kickoff I said the exact words, "Forget the Totes, get all the cans." Then after the discussion with my team we thought only certain teams would need it and it would too risky of a strategy.

So instead of being in and extended regret over I decided I would find a solution to the problem. So I have started carrying a notebook in my bag everywhere I go, so if I have an Idea about anything I jot it down and I can later revist the idea and think about it in depth about it.

TL;DR: Learn from your mistakes and try to prevent them from happening. "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it"-George Santayana

[techhelpbb]

Speaking only for myself:

I have some regrets from 20 years or so of on and off involvement with FIRST at many levels.

1. I never regret helping students.
2. I never regret when our robots perform less than expected - because I never regret helping students and helping them learn how to recover from failure is part of that (that does not mean I don't have empathy).
3. Winning at all costs is becoming a way of life seemingly around all of the the World - and the problem is often 'at all costs' is not really just your costs or consequences and I regret that more people do not understand that (a lack of empathy).
4. I often regret that some of the things FIRST aspires to and inspires to achieve are somewhat scope limited to FIRST. At some point I think that it's possible to outgrow FIRST and to sit down and rationally say - I don't need this 6 week deadline to get these benefits for my community or me.
5. I may yet regret that between 3 and 4 that the glue of competition is more appealing and binding than the benefits beyond the competition in this World. Sometimes you have to do what's right because it's right - not because you will win an award.

[John Retkowski]

Every year I look back on as a student, I regret not working harder during build season.

[Taylor]

I see mistakes, but not regrets.
If the mistakes had not been made, I (we) would not have learned from them.
If the mistakes had not been made, I would not be the person I am today.

This is not to say I'm not remorseful, but I don't have ragrets.

[jlindquist74]

If you have no regrets, you fall into one of two categories:

• You didn't try
• You didn't pay attention

That's it. The technical mistakes you regret are just part of the learning process. This is the time in your life to make those mistakes. The stakes almost could not be lower. Yes, these competitions mean a lot to you, as they should. But the regret you may feel now will fade with time. These are small regrets. Don't sweat them.

Failing here will not cost you your job, your living, your home, or your ability to provide for your family. The coin in which you pay now is pride and prestige, and maybe a couple of trips out of town. What you learn now will make you less likely to derail or damage your career in the future.

The regrets you truly want to avoid are the interpersonal ones. Be ready to make mistakes in technical contexts, expect it to happen, even welcome it. You should be much more careful in how you treat your teammates, your opponents, your mentors and coaches, and how you represent your team and your community. (The few mistakes I've made there are the only ones I would go back and change.)

Of the fantastically talented engineers I've known, there's a few that I think little of as people. (One or two names, you would recognize.) Given the choice between working or socializing with them, or with lesser engineers who are outstanding people, I'll take the latter every day and twice on Sunday. The work will still get done well, and it will be a lot more gratifying.

What would you rather say? We won Worlds but I hated the experience and half the people? Or that we fell short on the field, but I loved everything we did and everyone around me?

[GeeTwo]

My biggest personal regret regarding robotics was the team's second year, and my first year (2013 Ultimate Ascent). I was mechanical mentor for our secondary function (that is, climb); my experience with antisubmarine warfare through the 90's and 00's (and before and since) set me up to work around another "more important" function. "Team Foundation" (drive and Frisbee thrower, herein referred to as TF) had built what they felt was a good device to accelerate and spin a Frisbee (and it was great after a few more tweaks). They had not yet figured out how to lift a Frisbee from "the stack" at the bottom of the ramp into the first spinning pneumatic wheel. I verbally pitched a pneumatically-powered "finger" that would push from inside the lowest Frisbee. No one got the idea, and everyone else's idea was much more complex, so I decided to take things literally into my own hands. I walked around the build space, "cutting" aluminum bar through metal fatigue, doing a bit of rough hand bending, and bungeed a working prototype lifter into place on the build frame before the discussion died down. Once people saw it work, it took little time before it was "plan A". TF put in metal bars to mount the cylinder, but they did not replace the metal-fatigue-cut finger. I tried to convince TF that the finger was a prototype that needed to be done right, but they resisted the idea and I GAVE UP TOO QUICKLY.
Fast forward to Bayou: By now, we were putting 95+% of our shots taken from our sweet spot (essentially under the pyramid) into the 3 point (highest) goal. Once we worked out how to load from the station (which was built well outside of specification), we were a real competitor - when nothing went wrong! We had matches where we forgot to close the manual pressure relief valve, and it seemed like everything that could be set wrong was set wrong in at least one match. Despite our extreme case of TRS (twitchy robot syndrome), we managed to rank #20 (to this day, the only time we've ranked in the top 24). We were not selected for playoffs, and might have declined if we had been, because we were not ready to compete. It seems that our jury-rigged pneumatic "lift finger" had jammed beyond any easy repair. Shannon (another mentor), I, and a couple of students worked in the pits for about an hour trying to fix the lifter mechanism. After playoffs had run through a full cycle and we were nowhere near finishing, we called off the repair and started loading the trailer. It was literally well over a year (summer 2014) before we revived the Frisbee launcher. These days, our "no mentor prototypes on the competition robot" rule would have ensured replacement by a student-built part, but I've also learned to be more assertive in fixing problems in general.

This is a particular case of the general rule given several times above: don't forget, learn.