[FIRST EMAIL] Stop Build Day Survey

[cbale2000]

Originally Posted by Brian Selle

Survey was super confusing. I read and re-read every question, still not sure what they were asking. My random stop build points:

1) Removing the stop build day does not remove the deadline. Your first competition is your deadline. I would argue that removing stop build day is more "real world" than the stop build loophole. Car racing, sports, design competitions - everyone prepares right up to the start of the competition.

2) When I first started mentoring for FRC and heard that others build practice robots to get around the stop build day, it didn't feel right. Either you say stop and mean stop or don't do it at all.

3) I believe the mythical "6-week build" concept is mostly about a catchy marketing phrase. It rolls off the tongue and sounds great in the elevator. Then after you've set the hook, you explain the concept of building a second robot so that you can continue practicing, their accepting smile becomes a "what"?

4) For those teams/mentors that want to stop after 6 weeks that's still an option without an official stop build day. At least you won't be lulled into thinking that other teams are really stopping work after stop build day.

5) Several years ago when we only had a few kids and a couple mentors, I remember everyone working flat out until bag day to finish the competition robot. The kids and mentors were all exhausted. We didn't have the bandwidth to build 2 robots simultaneously. We'd take a couple days off then peel ourselves off the floor and have to start building the practice robot. It certainly paid off, but felt so unnecessary. I would have much rather continued working and practicing on the competition robot.

6) Competitions would soooo much less stressful. Teams would be able to help other teams more. We would actually have time to walk around and see other teams and the exhibits. I think the level of performance of all teams would increase. How many times have you said or heard, "it worked perfectly on our practice robot"?

I was going to post a long write-up of my thoughts on this topic, but you basically just summed up everything I was going to say for me.

[ahartnet]

I'm generally for eliminating stop build day. My only concerns with it is that it does serve as an important milestone for probably several people in FIRST who are involved in capacities beyond mentorship. If we have an unrestricted season or potentially even the 8 hrs of unbag weekly proposed by Jim of the Killer Bees - it'd be harder to peel me away from my team to volunteer for an event. If we're just working with the practice bot and a 30 lb withholding allowance, it seems easier to leave it to the hands of particular subsystems. If it's potentially the whole robot, I'd want to be around. Maybe that's just me and I'm overbearing/controlling.

That said, I think anyone that thinks things would be less stressful for any reason is fooling themselves. Yes, it would enable teams that are capable to help teams that are struggling more (inviting teams without a field to come do driving practice and the like), but as Parkinson's law states, the work fills to the time allowed. Top tier teams are already pushing themselves to the limits and things won't change (much) for them. Teams trying to develop into year in and year out contenders will have better robots, but will be just as stressed. If unrestricted robot access would have let you complete that "1 more thing" this year, all that would happen is you would move on to that next "1 more thing". That's what pulls us into FIRST in the first place. The only place where I see there being objectively less stress is for teams in an area that can get pre-inspected and are willing to do so. I think a major problem is that many of the teams that would benefit largely from being pre-inspected will likely not see or respond to emails setting that time up, or are far away from other teams where getting someone to do a pre-inspection would be tough. Additionally teams far away from a team with the resources to build a field for practice time will still be hindered. How many teams are far enough away from a practice field that they really still won't be prepared for competition?

Even with all the above though, bag day seems to be a detriment your average FRC team.