Mythical Six Week Build Season

[pabeekm]

Originally Posted by MrForbes

John might have a definition of "competitive" that is relevant to most teams.

I’d argue there's a definition of "competitive" that we can all agree with; it’s a drive to always do things better, gain more experience, and meet new personal bests. I don’t care how many banners a team has: if they have that drive, they are a terrifying and inspirational competitor who will eventually earn any measure of success they want.

It's worth noting that extra time on the robot can make a team more competitive in that respect, whatever their on-field goals are. It's an opportunity to put extra passion to work and learn more as a result. Practice bots aren’t necessary for teams to succeed on the field, but they can push a team’s experience and performance to levels they couldn't reach otherwise. That may sound cheesy, but it's true and awesome.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by pabeekm

I’d argue there's a definition of "competitive" that we can all agree with; it’s a drive to always do things better, gain more experience, and meet new personal bests. I don’t care how many banners a team has: if they have that drive, they are a terrifying and inspirational competitor who will eventually earn any measure of success they want.

It's worth noting that extra time on the robot can make a team more competitive in that respect, whatever their on-field goals are. It's an opportunity to put extra passion to work and learn more as a result. Practice bots aren’t necessary for teams to succeed on the field, but they can push a team’s experience and performance to levels they couldn't reach otherwise. That may sound cheesy, but it's true and awesome.

That's an admirable suggestion, but I'll bet you a lunch that 90% of the folks using the word "competitive" in this thread, mean "builds a robot that has a strong chance of doing well during tournaments".

I doubt many use it to mean what you just described, or to mean simply "able to compete". Able to compete is probably the more correct definition (if a dictionary was consulted, or if we focused on the etymology of the term).

If I won my bet, the definition of "doing well" would still be a big source of fuzziness, but it is definitely tilted in the direction of participating in the eliminations.

In my experience, "competitive" is a notion that means so many different things to so many different people that I have learned to avoid it. Using it creates waaaay too many opportunities for talking past one another. Parts of this thread are good examples of that.

Blake

[Rich Kressly]

It's been a pretty long time since I considered all these things - my last "on team" FRC experience was 2010. At that point, after a decade in the game, I was pretty much toast, but not totally because of "the game" and "the robot" but more because of the totality of game, robot, outreach, school integration, work with area teams as an SM, etc, etc.

So, with that in mind, I'll provide you with no answers, but rather I'll pose additional questions ...
- What's the best use of time for an FRC team when mentors are with students?
-Is more time on "the game" and "the robot" a good thing in terms of culture change or does it "only" provide better competition robots?
-What metrics should be used to measure this stuff?
-does having unenforceable rules (even if everyone is honest and gracious) make any sense?

I'm honestly not sure, even after all this time, exactly where I stand on the overall issue - I'm just adding questions to the pile. I think, if I were back on a team, I'd lean toward JVN's kickoff-to-competition and spread out the meetings, "teach" more, get home before my whole family was asleep ... and probably shut the "robot switch off" at some point and use more "in season" time for outreach, community service, etc.

The one thing I am sure of is I don't want good folks to burn out ... however, I can't say I know the exact cause of burnout in FRC or if it's even the same thing for all who need a break.

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by gblake

That's an admirable suggestion, but I'll bet you a lunch that 90% of the folks using the word "competitive" in this thread, mean "builds a robot that has a strong chance of doing well during tournaments".

I doubt many use it to mean what you just described, or to mean simply "able to compete". Able to compete is probably the more correct definition (if a dictionary was consulted, or if we focused on the etymology of the term).

If I won my bet, the definition of "doing well" would still be a big source of fuzziness, but it is definitely tilted in the direction of participating in the eliminations.

In my experience, "competitive" is a notion that means so many different things to so many different people that I have learned to avoid it. Using it creates waaaay too many opportunities for talking past one another. Parts of this thread are good examples of that.

Blake

For me, competitive means playing saturday afternoon. Playing Saturday means your team is excited and energized. It means you have something positive to bring back to your school and tell them about how far you got. And we've seen enough upsets to know that anything can happen, so long as you're playing saturday afternoon.

[JVN]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

For me, competitive means playing saturday afternoon. Playing Saturday means your team is excited and energized. It means you have something positive to bring back to your school and tell them about how far you got. And we've seen enough upsets to know that anything can happen, so long as you're playing saturday afternoon.

Based on last year... Einstein or nothing, then?

[marshall]

Originally Posted by JVN

Einstein or nothing

QFT.

[Brandon Holley]

Originally Posted by Drakxii

Personally I really like 6 week format, it feels very fitting to an engineering project in the real life. Including the radical changes with short windows and/or weight limits. Also it gives a good amount of time in the fall for training.

I love the title of this thread because the myth really is this exact statement above. The 6 week deadline is arbitrary. As has been beaten to death in this thread already, our team changes almost nothing about our work style/pace after bag day. The deadline is the competition! Its why every team continues to make changes and improve their robots throughout an event, because the real deadline is when autonomous starts on your next match. When that match is over you get a new deadline of another match, maybe a few minutes from then, maybe a couple weeks from then, you get my point.

My biggest sticking point lies in the almighty dollar. FIRST is run on free money. Money that flows in from sponsors, governments, stipends, endowments and communities. FIRST doesn't generate cash, this is obvious- so its why spending money intelligently and efficiently is really important to me. The way the build season works now inherently is more expensive than any other method. It pushes teams to pay for ultra fast shipping, buy duplicates of many expensive components (both mechanical and electrical) and really lean on fabrication sponsors to deliver duplicate parts and assemblies. This is because the rules are opened enough outside the bag that you can gain fundamental advantages by spending money.

To me this is just crazy. Why are we spending money on this stuff when we are an organization funded by others? Maybe I'm in a minority, but this to me is one of the most compelling reasons to consider a change. I'd much rather spend some more money on tools for our lab, stipend mentors, cover travel costs, etc!

-Brando

[MrForbes]

Originally Posted by Brandon Holley

The way the build season works now inherently is more expensive than any other method. It pushes teams to pay for ultra fast shipping, buy duplicates of many expensive components (both mechanical and electrical) and really lean on fabrication sponsors to deliver duplicate parts and assemblies. This is because the rules are opened enough outside the bag that you can gain fundamental advantages by spending money.

Interesting...we don't spend money on this stuff. And we're one of the bigger fish in our small pond.

I guess you can find fault with the game, or you can find fault with how you play the game?

[techhelpbb]

Originally Posted by MrForbes

Interesting...we don't spend money on this stuff. And we're one of the bigger fish in our small pond.

I guess you can find fault with the game, or you can find fault with how you play the game?

In fairness there's a lot of reasons why you need more than the spend of money alone and the need for fast shipping to determine if there's a fault in a team rather the competition.

Hence the need to ask questions about making a practice robot in my other topic.

For example:
1. Is your team really 2 teams in the same school who share spaces and some basic parts?
2. Do you run FLL, FTC and FRC competitions from your school?
3. Is each of your teams larger than 75 people?
4. Is your team student led?
5. Does your team compete in MAR (we can see you are in AZ)?
6. What technologies has your team decided to use (do you CNC, powder coat, CAD/CAM)?

Not that our teams should not seek out every opportunity to succeed but pretty clearly concerns exist beyond our teams and we are not new to this. Between FRC11 and FRC193 we tend to have very different build styles. The FRC11 team is the older students in their last 2 years and they tend to use the CNC and mass manufacturing skills more. The FRC193 team are in their 1st 2 years of high school and tends towards classic build where hand tools are often adequate. There are upsides and downs to these approaches and also how optimized your team is with either.

[Brandon Holley]

Originally Posted by MrForbes

Interesting...we don't spend money on this stuff. And we're one of the bigger fish in our small pond.

I guess you can find fault with the game, or you can find fault with how you play the game?

I really dislike comparing individual team's methodologies and styles because there are so many factors to drive teams to do what they do, im not going to even attempt to list them. What works for you, may not work for another team.

Would you disagree that being able to spend money on these types of things is a fundamental advantage a team can have? Of course spending power will always be an advantage for some teams, but there is a inflection point to me where being able to spend into a 2nd robot or a redesign gains a team a serious advantage. If there wasn't, would the teams that do it, do it?

-Brando

[Ryan Dognaux]

Our team takes a few days off and then keeps right on working after bag day with our practice robot. The 6 week deadline truly is just a suggestion if you have the resources to build 2 robots. I understand that the 6 weeks deadline is 'part of the challenge' but isn't the challenge already challenging enough? There are still tons of teams that field robots that barely function at all. How is that inspiring?

Even if a team only met to work & practice for a single weekend prior to their actual regional event, just think how much more productive Thursdays would be for everyone. I know it would allow us to actually use Thursdays for practice instead of integrating our modifications that we made to the practice robot.

[Kevin Leonard]

5254 had an incredibly successful season last year for a second year team, despite not having a practice robot. 2 Regional Finalists and quarterfinals in Carson is nothing to scoff at.

But do you know what the difference between the medals 5254 won and the banners they COULD have won? The ability to access the robot between competitions.

5254 lost in Finger Lakes finals due to 2 dropped cans. One of the features they were unable to implement between regionals (that they implemented for championships) is a can stabilizer.

5254 is a small, low resource team that is fundraising like crazy right now so that we can have a practice robot for the 2016 season. Because we don't want to lose like that again.

[Michael Corsetto]

Originally Posted by Ryan Dognaux

Our team takes a few days off and then keeps right on working after bag day with our practice robot. The 6 week deadline truly is just a suggestion if you have the resources to build 2 robots. I understand that the 6 weeks deadline is 'part of the challenge' but isn't the challenge already challenging enough? There are still tons of teams that field robots that barely function at all. How is that inspiring?

Even if a team only met to work & practice for a single weekend prior to their actual regional event, just think how much more productive Thursdays would be for everyone. I know it would allow us to actually use Thursdays for practice instead of integrating our modifications that we made to the practice robot.

This effect is multiplied between a teams first event and second event.

One of the magical aspects of Districts is one fee gets you two events. Teams are inspired to improve between events as they see their creations succeed and/or fail in the heat of the event.

The current system severely limits how much teams can exercise this new-found inspiration, mostly because of a plastic bag.

Well put Ryan.

-Mike

[plnyyanks]

Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto

One of the magical aspects of Districts is one fee gets you two events. Teams are inspired to improve between events as they see their creations succeed and/or fail in the heat of the event.

I would love to see some analysis like Jim Zondag did in another thread but that shows separate OPR growth curves for district and non-district teams.

I would speculate that district teams would increase their OPR more over time when compared to regional teams attending multiple events, possibly related to their unbag window in between events.

If I have time, I'll try and crunch some numbers this afternoon.

[jman4747]

If you are able to wait a week to get something and still get adequate practice in then that's fine. If you could get them in a week sooner, under the same conditions, you gain a week of practice or whatever you want to do. You could stop working a week sooner and have more down time before the next competition. Thus eliminating stop build day gives you that sort of option, which you don't have to use.

We would use the time to make a drive base with some weight thrown on to act as a defense bot to practice against. Way way cheaper and easier option than making a copy of our main that still serves a huge purpose.

I guess if you wanted to be a defense team you could build a fully functional scoring bot to practice against.

EDIT: If things are better in moderation than why binge on FRC for six weeks? Why not spread out your time?