Opinion Poll: Proliferation of Prefbricated Parts

[Christopher149]

Originally Posted by XaulZan11

I agree with everything in your post (I have no problems at all with the current suppliers), except this. If FIRST (either HQ or the teams/community) decided they don't want 'purchasable robots' something could be done.

(As someone involved with FTC this year) The FTC rules for 2015-16 state:

Originally Posted by FTC - RM01 (c.)

COTS parts and assemblies may only have a maximum of a single degree of freedom. It is the intent of FIRST that Teams design and build their devices to achieve the game challenge. Assemblies of COTS components, such as linear slides, and gearboxes are allowed while a pre-fabricated gripper assembly designed to grab the game elements is not. Holonomic wheels (omni or mechanum) are exempt from the one degree of freedom limitation.

So, it is not impossible that FRC may at some point have a similar sort of rule to push back on complete COTS solutions. (Though the specific rule would sure put a damper on shifting gearboxes, etc.)

[Ekcrbe]

Originally Posted by MrJohnston

* Pre-fabricated items add an interesting layer to all of this. On one side, they give the less-experienced teams a chance to at least play on the same field as those teams flush with strong mentors, great facilities and cash. On the other, they potentially cut into the kids' learning experience.

...

* At the same time, it's not right if it is possible to put a competitive robot forward with little or no engineering knowledge. It seems fundamental to FRC that students must be forced to develop engineering skills and knowledge in order to compete. Students who have more such ability should be able to produce products superior than what students lacking such knowledge could produce.

These are the two points that I think are the most pertinent, and I think my differing opinion comes from my differing understanding of the second.

Can you put a minimally competitive FIRST Stronghold robot on the field this March with very little previous engineering knowledge? Yes. I don't think that is bad. I think it is a requirement that a rookie team not feel completely incompetent and disheartened after its first season, so there should be a support structure to allow any team to put something on the field. Can that team instead field a moderately competitive robot without adding anything to their repertoire of engineering knowledge? I don't think so. It seems to me that when you are a team that knows next to nothing, having these "plug and play" options can give you the ability to start moving up competitively, which makes the competition more appealing (that's the inspiration), which in turn fuels students' drive to learn more and pushes them further. And this model says nothing of the fact, which others have mentioned here, that it's a lot easier to recruit members, mentors, and sponsors when your robot works and looks impressive, which drives yet more improvement.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I challenge the notion that COTS parts are erasing the advantage of having experience and knowledge on your team. They simply augment your capabilities and allow your students to focus on building more non-COTS systems. As long as you can't literally buy a whole robot in a box, that will remain true.

I doubt that there are many teams who have the capabilities to build the same robot they actually did, but without the COTS components they used. The purpose of buying COTS is to save time and effort, so we would expect that taking away the COTS components would require teams to cut back on other mechanisms to have the time and manpower required to build those components from scratch instead. Perhaps students are plugging in a COTS gearbox to give themselves the time to properly design, build, and test an arm. They lose out on learning about designing a gearbox, but instead get to learn about designing an arm, and their robot is more competitive (which makes them more inspired) to boot. Is learning about one mechanism more valuable than the other? I say no, which is why I say COTS components don't take the experience away from anyone.

[JesseK]

In developing new products, I simply hope that suppliers do not encourage sacrificing resiliency in problem solving for convenience in executing a solution. Students who are taught that mindset are terrible Engineers, expecting where to be told a solution and the complaining when it doesn't "just work by pressing the button". "Business is Business" is a cop-out when it goes that far.

With that said, there are only a couple of current products available from the 5 main FRC suppliers that seem (IMO) to provide a direct and nearly complete solution rather than encourage finding and adapting a solution. The rest of them encourage us to try, try again, and eventually succeed

[techhelpbb]

'Grumpy' 40 year old man here speaking for myself:
When I was a kid the closest thing you were gonna find to a pre-made robots were:

R/C cars
Model airplanes
RB5X robots (of which I have 2)
Heathkit Heros
Robotic arms
Armatron which is still really a toy
Legos with the original control box that was not battery operated at all

Now I am impressed with the variety of the kit parts.
I think it's great that it lets you build a robot part by part with barely any machine tools.

Here's the problem - it also lets you not learn how to use machine tools.
It lets you under-utilize tools you have.
It is teaching far too little about electronics.

So on the one hand I want FIRST to grow.
On the other I often wonder if FIRST is more about growing itself than challenging and encouraging the students to their full potential.
It is possible to win at these games without doing much down and dirty fabrication at all - and in fact - if you spend too much time getting too involved in that sort of thing you might actually work against yourself.

I think these limitations mean it's actually possible to outgrow FIRST:
I just put a AndyMark AM14U2 together with a complete RoboRIO control system, NavX, part of a pneumatic system, encoders and co-processor in 2 days. With the co-processor being the longest delay.
At some point it's possible some teams - if they plan really carefully - could be done in < 2 weeks.
So what is the project too big then?
I can see this actually getting boring.

[Sunshine]

Doesn't FIRST start the whole COT purchasing culture by providing a frame kit in the rookie kit of parts?

In my opinion, the line was crossed when you could buy a complete swerve drive system. The line continues to be crossed with the Rhino, intake and possibly actuator kit. But that's my line, yours may vary.

I am old school and will admit it. I'm not crazy about our culture that wants brand new teams to get instant satisfaction by being competitive at competion instantly. I still remember our rookie year, we told the kids it would be a long hard road and they had to earn their stripes. But hey, I don't like participation trophies either.

The flip side
I like the use of COTS like gear boxes. There is so much to do and learn in six weeks that our students can't do/learn it all. That's why we encourage them to switch sub teams from year to year. We suffer a little but they learn more.

Quote:
Originally Posted by JesseK View Post
In developing new products, I simply hope that suppliers do not encourage sacrificing resiliency in problem solving for convenience in executing a solution.
I really like that. I may steal that verbiage soon and often....

[techhelpbb]

Just to frame this conversation a little differently:

Look around at some of the reactions of some teams to the lack of pneumatic tires with easy to use hubs lately.

It was almost like the sky had fallen.
For just tires.

There was time when no one would have said a word (note my rookie year).

[Ginger Power]

Originally Posted by techhelpbb

At some point it's possible some teams - if they plan really carefully - could be done in < 2 weeks.
So what is the project too big then?
I can see this actually getting boring.

There will always be optimization. There will always be teams striving for perfection. Teams will always want to be the best, and that simply doesn't happen in less than two weeks.

I don't believe FRC will ever be boring for the general participants. It definitely won't for me. Even if I were to continue building my Ri3D robot for 6 weeks, I don't think it would get boring. There would always be improvements that I want to make.

A complacent engineer is a bad engineer.

[techhelpbb]

Originally Posted by Ginger Power

There will always be optimization. There will always be teams striving for perfection. Teams will always want to be the best, and that simply doesn't happen in less than two weeks.

I don't believe FRC will ever be boring for the general participants. It definitely won't for me. Even if I were to continue building my Ri3D robot for 6 weeks, I don't think it would get boring. There would always be improvements that I want to make.

A complacent engineer is a bad engineer.

Yes and one could make those improvements by simply buying more stuff and bolting it together. So that doesn't mean you are gaining any new skills as a fabricator or an engineer.

One could fill that time by building a practice bot but again that could be more consumption.

One could build a whole field to test on so that will fill more time maybe that would teach some fabrication skills assuming you didn't buy most of that as well.

The point still remains - we are entirely focused on that robot.
Not on all the opportunities some of these tools would offer.

[Ginger Power]

Originally Posted by techhelpbb

Yes and one could make those improvements by simply buying more stuff and bolting it together. So that doesn't mean you are gaining any new skills as a fabricator or an engineer.

One could fill that time by building a practice bot but again that could be more consumption.

One could build a whole field to test on so that will fill more time maybe that would teach some fabrication skills assuming you didn't buy most of that as well.

The point still remains - we are entirely focused on that robot.
Not on all the opportunities some of these tools would offer.

There will never be a day when 'Company A' sells a game specific solution that will be more optimized than the 254's and 1114's of the world. When that day comes then I 100% agree with you. Until that happens there will always be a place for teams to improve upon a prepackaged, game specific solution.

Hopefully they will make these improvements through the use of machine tools with the assistance of professional engineers and machinists who know how to work them.

The teams who choose not to improve upon the prepackaged solution are the teams who don't currently field a working robot. They will benefit more from the prepackaged solution than they will from building a box on wheels. The competition aspect of FRC will become more appealing to the general public which is a nice side effect of raising the competitive floor.

[techhelpbb]

Originally Posted by Ginger Power

Hopefully they will make these improvements through the use of machine tools with the assistance of professional engineers and machinists who know how to work them.

That's the thing. Once you need those sorts of tools it becomes a project bigger than the 6 weeks or the students aren't solo on the really more complex tools if it's just those 6 weeks. Also people do just send parts out to be made professionally.

So really to those teams with the ability to deeply optimize you have something going on there bigger than FIRST.
There really isn't much in FIRST to reward or penalize for custom fabrication.

[MrJohnston]

Originally Posted by Ginger Power

There will never be a day when 'Company A' sells a game specific solution that will be more optimized than, the 254's and 1114's of the world..

I disagree. There is no doubt that there are a number of teams that annually produce some very impressive robots. However, by the nature of FRC teams, all their pieces and parts are, to one degree or another, designed and built by students. I am convinced that a group of professional robotics engineers could work together to produce a better product than any team where students are an integral part of the design or fabrication of parts. If it is permitted, we will see an improvement of ready-made parts in time. Our suppliers are trying to make a profit (that's fine, of course); if their is a profit in creating better-performing pieces and parts, they will do so.

There does need to be a line - such as the FTC rule mentioned previously... I know I like the fact that we can start with the Kit Bot. I do wonder if the Rhinos go too far... I suppose I don't mind if pieces such as the AndyMark Intake are available, if they are not particularly good in comparison to what the average veteran FRC team can do on their own? (Kind of like the Kit Bot - it will roll around, but don't don't expect too much speed, pushing power, etc. without some refinement.) In other words, the struggling team can get something on the field and play the game, but will not be in a position to be stronger than teams with some know-how. )

Perhaps one differentiation could be here: Gearboxes, Actuators, etc. are not game-specific solutions. It is still up to teams to figure out how to use them. The Rhino drive and the intake are something more than that...

[evanperryg]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

I do think there is a difference between a generic-use COTS robot part (a gearbox) and a game-specific COTS robot part (an intake). That may be the distinction that upsets some people.

Agreed. COTS parts level the playing field by providing lower-resource teams with affordable, premade options that will fit their needs well enough. However, a team who relies solely on COTS systems will find that their performance is much the same- off-the-shelf, just like everyone else. Although COTS assemblies raise the baseline for competitive robots, they don't hurt teams who put time and effort into mechanisms of their own design.

[Caleb Sykes]

I don't really buy the arguments that having more COTS components brings the bottom up relative to the top, although they do certainly bring everyone up. Even though there has been a steady increase in FRC-specific COTS components over the past few years, OPR distributions have remained similar. It would be interesting to see these same plots from even earlier years though. COTS components do indeed bring the bottom up, but that statement alone is misleading, because if so, they also bring the top up by a pretty comparable amount.

I am convinced though that having easily accessible drive components makes it very difficult for teams not to field driving robots. I would love it if we could get to the same point with mechanisms.

The times from before the kit chassis were the Dark Ages. We are in the Renaissance now, and after the ravaging Stronghold wars are finished, AndyMark, VEXPro, WCP, and many others will bring us so many good COTS parts that every robot will not only be able to drive, but will also have functional mechanisms. Then, we will enter the Enlightenment, and the whole world will be inspired by our amazing robots that can all actually do something.

[GeeTwo]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

There are a great many real-world engineering jobs that involve the spec'ing, selection, and integration of COTS components. Not all engineers work on the component design level.

This. One of our mentors engineers ocean data collection and transmission systems. Most of his designs are 80-90% COTS parts integrated with the critical 10%-20% that make the system meet the requirements. There are some major companies out there who sell and service operating systems that are 90% open source and 10% custom. When a COTS product meets a one-off requirement at a decent price, designing and building a custom solution is bad engineering.

Likewise, our team starts with pre-engineered COTS drive trains, gearboxes, motors, and mounting brackets when available, and designs and assembles them to meet the requirements of our strategy, which was decided in order to meet the requirements of the game. I can't think of a time that we used anything mechanical that was more complex than a gearbox without making some modifications to it to suit our game strategy. Last year we turned the 2015 KoP chassis into an H-drive, this year we're making a 10 wheel drive starting from the same kit. We were working on a leading wedge for our robot that matches the one AndyMark will be selling soon; once we expected this to happen, we did the prototype but canceled the design and construction of the competition wedge, and moved on to even more manipulator design. This is a miniature version of the real-world situation in many, many fields.

The $400 limit does a pretty good job of preventing "prefab" robots. If a team showed up with a robot built and programmed 100% according to plans available from a vendor or on-line, there would be little STEM inspiration. When a team shows up with a well-running original design that is composed of 90+% COTS parts, learning and inspiration are all but certain to have been part of the process.

[bEdhEd]

Andy, I don't take your post as a bash, so please don't take mine as a bash either.

Personally, I think if someone thinks that heavy use of COTS components in a robot stifles learning, creativity, and problem solving, then that person is lacking in a little thing called imagination.

We LOVE LOVE LOVE COTS parts. VEXPro is our go-to COTS system, and the bonus is that they share our color scheme

The reason I bring up imagination is because the ways that COTS parts are creatively implemented is what is important. I think one issue is the very wrong implication that building with COTS yields a lack in creativity or learning value. I think it's quite the opposite. With COTS parts, we can prototype and iterate many times faster than if we had to fabricate more things from scratch. The most important part of our design process is iterating. This is what I feel can be most valuable to learn during the build season. Taking time to custom design something with the intent of learning skills should be left for the pre- and post-season.

It seems like some people think using COTS parts is a plug and play game, but it really isn't, at least on my team. It's more of a game of plug and fail, plug again, and it's kind of OK now, do some math, plug again, and well, it looks great but need to do better, plug again, and finally it works the way we want!

Some may disagree with me on this, but with the six weeks you're given, there's no time to learn through making everything custom! That takes up precious time that could be spent making prototypes and constantly improving them until they can no longer be improved. That's how progress is made in technology in the real world. The biggest technological advances don't come from one isolated design, or from some person making an original breakthrough seemingly out of nowhere. These advances come from years and even generations of gradual iteration and building upon the knowledge acquired from others.

Real engineers don't have to build everything they design, and that idea can apply to FRC teams too. If my team can put together a VEXPro ball shifter, and not bother with building a custom gearbox, then we will do it! But can we build our own gearboxes, and do we have students with the skills to design them? Yes! Because they did that learning in the other part of the year known as the off-season, where we have time to step back and go through the details with both FRC and non-FRC related projects.

If we don't spend time fabricating systems that can be bought already, then that gives us the time to fabricate the systems that really have to be custom. We may LOVE LOVE LOVE COTS, but COTS doesn't give us everything. We CNC and 3D print our own parts, weld our frame, and make our own composites. It's COTS parts that allow us to focus on the custom systems of our robots, so those systems are better tuned and ready for competition. If we had spent time machining drive transmissions, the most basic of systems that can be taught in the pre-season, then we would have less time, energy, and resources into making custom systems work, and work well.

By the time this build season is over, we will have built/worked with four robots: Concept (mostly built pre-season as an adaptable chassis), Prototype, Practice, and Competition. Without COTS parts at the ready, we wouldn't be able to do this. It is this iterative process that shows students what true learning is. True learning isn't limited to being able to recall past instructions enough to design a custom gearbox or having the skills to mill everything manually. True learning is being able to develop meta-cognition, or in other words, self reflection in what has, can, and will be done. This is what the iterative process gives to our students. It shows them that rarely is anything done on the first try. Neither is building anything easy, even with the amount of perceived convenience that COTS parts can deceptively give to teams who won't see COTS parts as something that they can make their own in some creative manner.

If we can buy an entire intake system, arm system, or shooting system, we will. But you sure can bet that our students will break it down, rebuild, tinker, and tweak it to make it suited to our own strategic needs better than what the assembly instructions recommend.

A team that heavily relies on COTS parts only misses out on the learning of building a robot if their mentors and students lack the creativity to "own" those parts and make something original from them. For that kind of team, the problem isn't in the prefabricated parts, but in the limits of their imagination. Why not buy a COTS part and ask, "can I use this for something it isn't intended for?" (but safely)

Teaching meta-cognition through the iterative process is one way to keep in mind that FRC isn't all about the robot, but about learning the skills that can make a student a productive and articulate member of society. This self reflection is one of those skills. Focusing on making students learn particular niche skills like fabricating custom parts is to lean more on the "it's all about the robot" side of the spectrum.

By no means am I saying that custom fabricating parts that are available COTS is a bad thing. If your team is capable of it, by all means go ahead. My main point is that with the short time we are given to make a competitive machine, it is OK to opt for the quicker option, and save the more technical learning for the off-season. Also, I'm not saying that build season is not the time to learn technical skills. There's plenty of time in the season to learn technical skills, but that should be through the systems that are unique to the team design and the year's game, not something that can always be designed during off-season, such as drive transmissions (which rarely change season to season) and experimental systems (e.g. if a team wants to do swerve the first time, they first do it pre-season instead of after kickoff)

COTS parts are as valuable a learning too as you make them.