POLL: Six Week Build Season

[techhelpbb]

Originally Posted by Cory

Neither of those proposals is a good solution.

FIRST has openly stated they will not expand into May, because AP testing (and finals for some schools).

They are never going to move left into December, because absolutely nothing gets done the last 1-2 weeks of December in the professional world. Tons of suppliers are closed. People are on vacation. If they're not on vacation, they want to be with their families. This is a total nonstarter.

Then make it even longer and move further back into December or beyond the AP finals.

As I pointed out elsewhere my commitments to FIRST start back in September and do not really end until May anyway.

Actually since FIRST commits to filling the orders for the KOP before December there should already be parts available when the KOP is delivered. Plus there's nothing at all stopping anyone from stockpiling earlier. Surely it pays to watch AndyMark's site on Tuesday for the deals and there are usually only 4 Tuesdays a month.

[Mike Marandola]

Originally Posted by AGPapa

I voted "keep it just like it is" but I'd support having more unbag time (~6hrs every week) as was suggested here.

I agree with this suggestion as well.

[dodar]

Any option 3 people like to voice their reasoning?

[techhelpbb]

Originally Posted by dodar

Any option 3 people like to voice their reasoning?

Already did:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...42&postcount=3

[Bob Steele]

Originally Posted by EricDrost

The third option is not enforceable.



I voted remove all restrictions, but giving 6hr/week unbag would be a good compromise. Especially so for those poor regional teams who get NO unbag time.

Let's not forget that the reason that District teams get unbag time at all is because they don't get the Thursday of a regional to work on their robot. District teams only get unbag time the week before the district event that they are participating in.

I would be in favor of allowing all teams to get unbag time each week with the District teams getting extra time before each event to compensate for the extra day that teams participating in Regionals get on Thursdays.

[Kevin Leonard]

Originally Posted by Bob Steele

I would be in favor of allowing all teams to get unbag time each week with the District teams getting extra time before each event to compensate for the extra day that teams participating in Regionals get on Thursdays.

+1

[tickspe15]

I am surprised that nobody has suggested a 4 week, or shorter, build season. It would increase the gap between good and bad teams and have little or no effect on the quality of robots In the elimination rounds at championships. It's a win win for everybody. The average team gets less burnt out, while elite teams get easier wins at district and regional events, and more time to test, compare, and improve designs after reveals before 2champs. Also 4 is a pretty number.

Whether build season is made longer, shorter, or eliminated all together nothing will change. Bad teams will still be bad and good teams will still be good.

[MrForbes]

I thought about mentioning the 4 week build season. It's actually what we aspire to every year. If we are on track to have the robot together by the end of week 4, then we have time to program it, tweak it, and practice with it for several days before putting it in the bag. When it works, this has been a good thing for us. We've actually spent most of practice day at many regionals, practicing with the robot. Instead of working on it all day.

[Jim Zondag]

Originally Posted by tickspe15

Whether build season is made longer, shorter, or eliminated all together nothing will change. Bad teams will still be bad and good teams will still be good.

I agree, but I personally believe that removing access restrictions to the robots will make the FRC better.......Much Better
There is considerable supporting data supporting this position:

Lets start with what we know:
Most of the teams in the FRC lack the ability to play the game well.
This year's median team contribution per match was about 18 points.
This is a capped stack of 3 totes. So HALF of the teams are worse than this.



Only 16% of the league could reliably do a 6 stack, and only 3% could reliably do 2 stacks.
If our ultimate goal is to make robotics into a spectator sport, this is not a recipe for success.
This trend is pretty much the same every year, regardless of the game. Most of the teams in the FRC lack any real ability to play the game every year.
This would indicate that either the challenge is too hard, there is not enough time, or both.

Next if we look at team capability growth through the season, we can see a clear trend of how teams improve the more they use their robots.



From this you can see that average capablity doubles when teams attend their second event, and more than triples with the third.
What this clearly reflects is what we all already know: Teams get better if they spend time using their robots.....much better.
Given the fact that teams only get 20-30 minutes of on field time at each event, the data would indicate that a little more access would go a long way toward improving overall on-field capability of the teams and would make FRC a much better spectator sport.

Lastly, lets explore the statement that the best teams will always probably win regardless of the constraints. The data also supports the fact that this is almost certainly true.
Adding the capability growth graph of the FRCTop25 teams to the chart we get this:



This elite group of teams have an average capability at their opening event which is better than the entire league average after 5 events.
They are simply way, way better than the vast majority of teams.
Nothing which FIRST HQ could do in terms of rules or additional constraints could possibly affect this gap.

So in summary, what do we know from the data:
1. Most FRC teams are pretty bad
2. Most FRC teams clearly improve if they spend more time using their robots.
3. It does not take a lot of additional access time to make teams get several times better on average.
4. The best teams are way better than everyone else
5. Additional constraints will do nothing to close the gap between the leaders and the rest.

So, in summary,
- Robot access restrictions do not hold back the small number of very good teams.
- Robot access restrictions hurt the vast majority of the teams
- Removing robot access restrictions will have the biggest positive impact on the weakest teams.

FIRST Management.....Wake Up....your own rule set is your own greatest liability.
Continuing to do something just because this is how it has always been done is not a good enough reason.
Einstein said, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
The average ability of FRC teams will never change as long as these access restriction rules remain in place.
Many people fear change.....but I thought FIRST wanted to change the world.
This is not the changing the world, this is changing one simple rule.......give us back our robots please!!!!

[MrForbes]

Interesting analysis, Jim.

Question...when you look at the teams that only play at one regional, vs two or more, how do those 1 regional teams stack up?

Again, you can build a robot in 3 days. You can also take all the time available up to competition day, and not finish a robot. I'd like to know how you could change rules in a way that would affect teams' work habits, to give a better outcome?

[Chief Hedgehog]

I am not really understanding the recent topics on trying to increase 'fairness' across FRC.

FIRST ROBOTICS COMPETITION. Each year there is a game with certain goals or objectives. There are restrictions, regulations, deadlines, penalties, etc. that are laid out at Kick-off and then amended through the build season.

What I fail to understand is how placing or removing restrictions on this COMPETITION will somehow level the playing field. No matter how FIRST adjusts the COMPETITION, teams will adapt. Strong and well financed teams will still rise to the top. I just don't see how any new restrictions have ever stopped the top-end teams.

This is a COMPETITION. The rules are laid out. FIRST allows for many ways to advance beyond the District or Regional format as well as reward teams that do not advance beyond their event. I know I am going to get a lot of negative feedback - but in a competition there is no such thing as 'fair'. One of my greatest pet peeves is when adults state that something is 'not fair'.

Here are some of the most common arguments to increase 'fairness' in FRC:
1. Take away the Practice Bot. High end teams will then realign their talent and resources to better prepare their competition robot.

2. Tools down date. High end teams will... "See above".

3. Take away bag and tag - The high resource teams will then find an event to compete in early - and then attend a late season event. This will allow these teams to compete and adjust for their later events. The lower resource teams will not have this advantage (as they do not now) - so nothing really changes.

4. Limit monetary sponsors - okay, there are ways around this as well. Instead of increasing the build portion, teams will just spend even more money on tools.

The only way for FIRST to make this "fair" is to create a season where all teams compete on the same dates. Costs will rise beyond anyone's comprehension. The logistics would ruin FIRST as it is now. Most teams would fold before the season even starts because the cost for attending an event in this format would be monumental.

No matter the limitations increased or decreased, the high resource teams will find a way - I just don't truly understand this unreal ideal of 'fairness' in a competitive format such as FIRST.

The whole idea of a competition is to compete - to best your adversaries. I just fail to see how any adjustment could level the playing field for all teams.

[mman1506]

Originally Posted by Chief Hedgehog

3. Take away bag and tag - The high resource teams will then find an event to compete in early - and then attend a late season event. This will allow these teams to compete and adjust for their later events. The lower resource teams will not have this advantage (as they do not now) - so nothing really changes.

A number of teams do that already (33 comes to mind)

[Jim Zondag]

Originally Posted by MrForbes

Interesting analysis, Jim.

Question...when you look at the teams that only play at one regional, vs two or more, how do those 1 regional teams stack up?

Again, you can build a robot in 3 days. You can also take all the time available up to competition day, and not finish a robot. I'd like to know how you could change rules in a way that would affect teams' work habits, to give a better outcome?

This whole debate needs to shift to a discussion about how we can encourage a spirit of continuous improvement amongst all teams in the FRC.
Continuous improvement is the essence of how the top teams operate and is the essence of how Engineering works in the real world.
Teaching anything else does a dis-service to our participants.
Today, only the well resourced team can really do continuous improvement, everyone else is pretty much screwed.

From the 2nd graph in my post above:
Teams who only play one event have only a slightly lower average performance in their first event than team who plan to play 2 event (3pts avg).
I attribute this to the "give up factor". Teams who only plan to attend one event do not put much effort into trying to fix and improve their machines at the event.
Many teams in this situation know that they are not a likely contender and thus are just waiting for it to end.
We have all seen this: teams who refuse help that they clearly need.
This does not really happen when team plan to play a 2nd event: they use the time they have to keep the situation from happening a 2nd time, and as such see positive benefit in the first tournament, and a doubling of ability by the second.

The 6 week build period is a myth. It is a sales gimmick used by FIRST to try to ally fears about overwork to new joining teams.
FIRST is not a 45 day program, it never has been.
It is a 113 day program, and for many of us, it is a 365 day program.
Anyone who is even moderately serious about achieving any success in this sport must admit this and act accordingly.

If it were up to me, I would abolish all practices regarding when we can do anything. The positives far outweigh the negatives.
There are very few practices like this in any other machine sport. I participate in many things other than FRC....FIRST is the only organization who thinks it is good to take my creations away from me.
Since no one else does this, we in FRC are either smarter than everyone else, or stupider than everyone else. (You decide).

I find it paradoxical that this rule is not consistent even within the FIRST programs: Small robots are much easier to change and copy than large robots, but there are no restrictions on the FLL and FTC machines.
If restricting change to a specific time window is some sort of FIRST core principle, then why is it not universal throughout their own programs?

These machine access rules are really just an extrapolation of a rule which was arbitrarily put in place in a failed attempt to force fairness in the league over 20 years ago.
This rule instead is the reason for the greatest inequalities in the league.
Time is our most precious resource, and by severely restricting time, FIRST gives massive advantage to those with money, experience and resources, and eliminates most avenues of recovery for those without.
Since it has been in place longer than most of our members have been alive, many people believe that the "rule of 6 weeks" is some sort of fundamental principle, but it is not.
It is an obsolete rule which continues to hold us all down and most people, even the people at HQ, have long forgotten why it was put there in the first place.

[Jim Zondag]

Originally Posted by mman1506

A number of teams do that already (33 comes to mind)

this makes me smile

We actually hate playing early/late, but sometimes this is unavoidable given other priorities.
It is hard to keep team momentum with such a large gap.

I prefer to play week 1 for two reasons:
1. Playing week one eliminates all excuses...you cannot put off anything until after bag day, you absolutely must be ready on time, and there is no recovery for anything you let slip. It is really hard, but it is worth it.
2. Playing week one is when you have the greatest advantage if you are done, and if you are right. 20 years of data support this....most teams do not know how to play yet on week one and most teams are not actually done building yet. If you are ready on both counts, you have a huge competitive advantage. This erodes pretty quickly in the following 2 weeks.

Our second choice is usually about:
1. A location I can get our sponsors, families, and fans to easily (aka, close to home)
2. An event with good teams attending. We do not want to play softball events, we want to be ready for States by playing with and against great teams.

So, going back to some of my points from earlier posts:
Even if all access restrictions were removed, the best strategy for the best teams will still be to be done early, play early, and win early.
Even without bag day, my season development schedule would not change.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Chief Hedgehog

The whole idea of a competition is to compete - to best your adversaries. I just fail to see how any adjustment could level the playing field for all teams.

Where do you see anything about people proposing this as an idea to "level" the playing field?

To level the playing field requires pushing the top teams down while pulling the bottom teams up. Nobody is claiming the top teams can be pushed down, by any means FIRST could use (see Jim's incredibly insightful, eloquent, and accurate comments on this, in this thread).

By eliminating bag day you DO have a chance to bring the bottom up.

People can argue all they want about whether they need FIRST to save them from themselves or not (the only argument I have heard, other than that the international teams benefit more than they do now, but disproportionately less than North American teams would under a no bag day rule set), but Jim showed us all the data. There is convincing proof that teams will get better if they have more access to their robots.