Cheesecake robot. How far is too far?

[Chief Hedgehog]

Wow - there is a large gray area of cheesecaking that would be crossed. It is one thing to help a team create new manipulators so that the team competes at a higher level...

As for building an entirely new robot for a team that already worked for six weeks on their own - yes, that is crossing a line.

However, there was a point at Lake Superior where a few teams got together in case a rookie team did not have one ready to go. Luckily for all involved - the rookie team showed up with a robot that was nearly ready to go. That being stated, the robot DID need some major work - and kudos to FRC 93 and FRC 1816 the team was ready to go at the end of the day on Thursday.

[murphy14]

Whether or not it is going too far is debatable. However, i feel that it is very against the point of FIRST, which is for students to work together with other students and overcome challenges as a team. Simply the fact that you have to ask this question should be enough of a answer.

[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by MaGiC_PiKaChU

We plan to build it from scratch at the event... Also, not with the kitbot

Lots of raw stock then. Unless you order it pre-cut, you'd have to cut all of it in the pits.

---

The fact that one team builds it, to me, is not in the spirit of first. At least the 900/1114 Harpoon rig was a combined effort. Just picking a team to drive it, to me, is indeed too far.

[GreyingJay]

It also kind of minimizes every part of the build season in favour of only looking at (presumably) winning. It says to me, never mind all the strategy work and planning and designing and time management and skill learning and testing and coding and teamwork and practice that you did during your build... forget all that and drive this instead because this will win more.

I would say this would be a grand gesture for a team that has had trouble getting something rolling and effective. The team that looks like they barely had time to assemble a working kitbot might appreciate this gesture on Thursday or Friday of a regional. A team might be interested in collaborating with you to build this ala the Simbacorns Harpoon Initiative. But I wouldn't want to be on a team that felt briefly elated because they were chosen only to find that the choosing team had an ulterior motive and no desire to use what they built.

[dtengineering]

Originally Posted by MaGiC_PiKaChU

Hello CD. I was thinking about it with a friend, and we consider building an entire robot at an event to give away as cheesecake to our 3rd alliance member. This seems entirely within the rules. The robot would be able to drive around. Is it too far? How would you feel competing with a robot you did not build? Opinions?

I know the manual is pretty long, and that sometimes people don't read ALL the way through, but... um... R1 is pretty close to the beginning:

R1 A Team must submit their ROBOT for Inspection. The ROBOT must be an electromechanical assembly built by the FIRST Robotics Competition Team to perform specific tasks when competing in FIRST STRONGHOLD. The ROBOT must include all of the basic systems required to be an active participant in the game – power, communications, control, BUMPERS, and movement. The ROBOT implementation must obviously follow a design approach intended to play FIRST STRONGHOLD (e.g. a box of unassembled parts placed on the FIELD, or a ROBOT designed to play a different game does not satisfy this definition).

R1 requires that the ROBOT a Team uses in competition was built by
that Team, but isn’t intended to prohibit assistance from other Teams
(e.g. fabricating elements, supporting construction, writing software,
developing game strategy, contributing COMPONENTS and/or
MECHANISMS, etc.).

Emphasis mine. Feel free to give away whatever you want, but maybe read at least one of the rules before suggesting your strategy is "entirely within the rules".

Sorry if that seems a bit snarky... some FRC rules can be difficult to figure out, or hard to notice. But they were pretty clear about this one...

Jason

[IronicDeadBird]

Also if you haven't alreayd made and tested the robot how do you know its worth replacing a robot on an alliance?

[FIMAlumni]

Similar discussion from last season with poll results from the community. Last year 16.20% of voters thought a new cheesecake robot should be allowed. Cheescake: How far is too far?

[MaGiC_PiKaChU]

Originally Posted by IronicDeadBird

Also if you haven't alreayd made and tested the robot how do you know its worth replacing a robot on an alliance?

I can't know that. I believe it's worth the try

[JohnSchneider]

Is the plan to have a drive team compete with a robot for the first time in eliminations? Because if you give it to them before I would bet that it gets drafted. Then what? You reposes the robot? Both situations sound like poor decisions even if it finished skirting the legal grey area.

[Ginger Power]

Originally Posted by marshall

I can't believe this is still a discussion...

It's going to be one of those annual threads like the mentor build vs. Student build, Regionals vs. Districts, and Mentor vs. Student Drive coaches. Unsurprisingly, all of those topics have been discussed in the last 3 days.

[The Ginger]

What if the robot frame was made of cheese cake?

[cj3958]

Originally Posted by The other Gabe

whether or not it is within the rules, it would be neither gracious nor professional to imply that their robot was worthless by giving them a completely different one

it would also be a poor allocation of your pit space and resources, IMO

Clearly someone wasn't at champs last year... Or wasn't paying attention to 1114's pit...

[Caleb Sykes]

Originally Posted by GreyingJay

If you baked a pie to bring to a potluck and I gave you a cheesecake and told you to bring that instead, am I not implying that your baking skills are undesired?

You offering me cheesecake does not make my pie "worthless." That is the particular word to which I was responding. If I have a decent pie, and you have some spectacular cheesecake that you want to give to me, that doesn't automatically make my pie un-edible, and it doesn't necessarily mean you think I am a horrible cook.

[hectorcastillo]

I'm confused. Is there or is there not going to be free cheesecake at Alamo?

[Akash Rastogi]

I'm very pro-choice about this issue. I think a team has the right to do with their robot whatever they want, even if it means doing away with their whole existing robot and creating a new one using a donating team's parts or full robot.