Taking the Bag out of Bag Day

[gegozi]

Originally Posted by Matt C

I think we should put the robot in a large crate, and ship it to a secure location where it is then transported and loaded into the venue for us.

I would rather keep the bag versus that. How do you make measurements of the robot when working on the 30 pounds that are unbagged?

Or, they could leave it in the bag until the night before competition, then we transport the robot to competition unbagged.

Just thinking.

[IronicDeadBird]

Originally Posted by Matt C

I think we should put the robot in a large crate, and ship it to a secure location where it is then transported and loaded into the venue for us.

The biggest glaring flaw with is that now schrodingers cat may or may not be in the box working.

[JohnFogarty]

Originally Posted by IronicDeadBird

Only if we do it with Kerbal Space Program.

I perfer Space Engineers.

[Daria Wing]

I was talking to a friend about something similar to this the other day, however, there are teams that make a practice bot that allows even more capabilities such as more prototyping and such. It would be nice to check measurements or fix broken electronics, and I do have a love/hate relationship with that bag. Even so, I don't feel that there is much difference, plus weighing and measuring and doing all those things will take even more time than placing into a bag and tying it up. Maybe if it was an option to do one or the other, that way it was a preference type of thing.

[logank013]

With this said situation, I think our team would be doing almost only auto practice. We built our practice robot and competition robot "identical" again this year. Just like last year, they look exactly the same and everything is a duplicate of the other, but they still aren't the same. They are close enough in the aspect of driving in teleop but in autonomous are just enough off. Basically, doing auto practice would make our autonomous codes a whole lot more precise.

[dirtbikerxz]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

I think we should have to strap rockets to our robot and send it to an undisclosed holding facility on the moon. Who's with me?

I'm in . (There's going to be those 5 rockets that fail and destroy those teams work entirely)

[FarmerJohn]

I like the idea of putting the robot in a bag, that way top teams won't steal our designs

[Zebra_Fact_Man]

Someone remind me again, what is the purpose of bagging the robot?

If it's leveling out the playing field, it doesn't do that at all, because now only the teams rich enough are going to be able to buy/build a second robot to iterate, improve, and get better before their first event. If it's leveling out the playing season, again it doesn't do that either, because with second robots, teams are still increasing their level of ability as the season goes on, and quite often, the really wealthy teams will schedule extra regionals just to work out all the kinks. If it's to put a hard stop on the build season, NOPE, not doing that either. My team (mostly freshman this year) was running behind schedule, so we've barely started our second robot, which means that we're going to be busy building straight through until our first event.

I used to think it had a purpose on my former team which was always strapped for cash, but now that I'm with a team with a little bit more money to spend, it really does nothing beneficial to any teams. Furthermore, I can't think of one instance in industry where some management organization is going to tell you "nope, hands off; you can't get better anymore".

Someone please show me the light of way.
I know this is not what this thread was intended for, so my apologies if we deviate course a little bit here.

[logank013]

Originally Posted by Zebra_Fact_Man

My team (mostly freshman this year) was running behind schedule, so we've barely started our second robot, which means that we're going to be busy building straight through until our first event.

I take it that your first robot is your competition bot and your second bot is your practice robot?

[Zebra_Fact_Man]

Originally Posted by logank013

I take it that your first robot is your competition bot and your second bot is your practice robot?

Yep. Wasn't the plan, but about middle of week six, we realized that "learning from our first robot to make a really great second robot" was no longer a feasible plan. At this point, we're going to swap out some of the more egregious parts during the 6hrs and unload day at our first event.

[hrench]

Originally Posted by Zebra_Fact_Man

Someone remind me again, what is the purpose of bagging the robot?

If it's leveling out the playing field, it doesn't do that at all

Similar to my post, I agree with this completely.

Originally Posted by Zebra_Fact_Man

Furthermore, I can't think of one instance in industry where some management organization is going to tell you "nope, hands off; you can't get better anymore".

This isn't correct.

I design trucks and when we ship the sales group their first demo trucks, we have to stop writing change orders on that model. We'll plan upgrades and improvements, but the body panels, the interior panels, the COTS things need to be ordered. So no upgrades are allowed.

I've designed radios, elevators, train parts, pumps, many other things. This is how it's worked for me every time. If you have a functional, safe design, even if it can be improved, it has to go into production at some point. You release the prints and they order the first production-run worth...sometimes hundreds of parts.

This is part of the real world of engineering. Every design can be improved after it's first conceived and tried, but mostly you'll be doing that after production has started and orders are being fulfilled. Many times that doesn't even happen--you have new projects by then...what was good enough to release is good enough to sell.

[Zebra_Fact_Man]

Originally Posted by hrench

I design trucks and when we ship the sales group their first demo trucks, we have to stop writing change orders on that model. We'll plan upgrades and improvements, but the body panels, the interior panels, the COTS things need to be ordered. So no upgrades are allowed.

I've designed radios, elevators, train parts, pumps, many other things. This is how it's worked for me every time. If you have a functional, safe design, even if it can be improved, it has to go into production at some point. You release the prints and they order the first production-run worth...sometimes hundreds of parts.

This is part of the real world of engineering. Every design can be improved after it's first conceived and tried, but mostly you'll be doing that after production has started and orders are being fulfilled. Many times that doesn't even happen--you have new projects by then...what was good enough to release is good enough to sell.

Fair points.

What you're leaving out is that these improvements are in fact noted, designed for, and the next version update (for a car, the next model year), they will be implemented. The only reason why they aren't implemented immediately is because the design has to go through rigorous testing in house and by third parties to ensure user safety, and they need to make thousands of identical parts to ensure quality. I see no such safety testing requirements in FIRST. Additionally, no one in FIRST is mass producing their robots, like a company does. Heck, some teams don't even put their designs into a CAD! RARELY if ever will a prototype, an early-off, or even a Test Trial part be 1:1 to production.

Maybe the original Design Engineers aren't involved in this optimization process, but people like myself (Industrial Engineers) certainly are figuring out how to squeeze just 10% more awesomeness out of the object in question. My job is never really over, until we all agree that it is not financially beneficial to make anymore improvements.

AND, much of this optimization is done on the supplier side of things, so the assembly company might not know exactly how many little-bitty changes were made before final parts are shipped for testing. They're not going to hold every suppliers hand; they've got a whole car to design, assemble, and sell.

[Zebra_Fact_Man]

Originally Posted by hrench

Similar to my post, I agree with this completely.

Just went back and reread your post. Yeah, we are pretty much in agreement with everything. Idk; maybe someone else will sweep in with the answer.

[HiimGosu4]

Or we use a box that meets the constraints for the robot, and it wooden so if it was open you would notice if it was.

[FABLABFULTONMO]

It is all about money, bagging = more practice robots = more money

PROOF 35$ dodge ball