[FIRST EMAIL] Stop Build Day Survey

[indieFan]

Originally Posted by gblake

"I advocate tightening the current stop-build restrictions because I don't want to see the total FRC program slide too far down the slippery slope of over-emphasizing the competition part of an otherwise well-rounded FRC program." See the next paragraph for an explanation of why I wrote this.

In this thread about a survey about Stop Build Day, I think it would be useful and interesting if each post (even those that are part of a multi-post exchange) began with a short sentence or phrase stating why the poster opposes/supports eliminating, weakening, loosening, tightening, keeping, strengthening (or is undecided about) the current stop build rules.

I wrote something very similar to this in my survey.

The question FRC needs to ask itself is: Does it want to emphasize the engineering, including the trade-offs that are required (everything has a trade-off), or does it want to emphasize winning a competition?

[D.Allred]

Originally Posted by indieFan

I wrote something very similar to this in my survey.

The question FRC needs to ask itself is: Does it want to emphasize the engineering, including the trade-offs that are required (everything has a trade-off), or does it want to emphasize winning a competition?

Interesting point. FIRST's goal is to inspire students and grow to reach as many students as possible. It emphasizes Gracious Professionalism and Co-opertition. Engineering and competition are just a means to that end.

I don't have the wisdom to know if eliminating bag day will negatively or positively impact those goals. My gut feel is it will provide more opportunities for teams to interact outside of competition which is a net positive to FIRST.

The change to a district event structure actually emphasizes competition more than dropping bag day. (More matches... same money ... better use of resources is the theme presented.) Are districts overemphasizing competition?

Food for thought.

David

[Deke]

I think these are two great points on this subject:

Originally Posted by waialua359

Here's something that no one has really elaborated on yet. What about student/mentor talent?
IMO, elite teams will always be elite teams no matter what rules you change. They are good not because they build 2 robots and continually iterate as the main reason. Its plain and simple.....talent.
I was blown away to here recently that teams could put in less than 1/2 the amount of time and build world class, Einstein ready robots.
I dont think you can do that with all the resources in the world or a change in schedule, without first and foremost the talent and experience to do so.
In Jim Zondag's white paper, he specifically names some example elite teams. Change the rules and they will STILL be elite.

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

I'm for stopping bagging. But I also understand that it would have minimal real impact for low performance teams on their competitiveness [1]. More impactful would be figuring out why so many teams continue to ignore the resources placed in front of them (Ri3D, kitbot, various build days hosted by teams) and figuring out how we can develop more resources and get them used.

Example - how many teams at your events failed to reliably drive? I seem to see at least one per event that's using the kitbot but wiring or programming was too hard. How many fail to move in auto? For me, way too many teams fell into that category. So, the question becomes why? The kitbot can be put together by following instructions. The wiring can be done similarly. And for the most part driving should work fine out of the box. But why is it still so hard?

The following is just from my own observations from watching competitions over the years in a district system.

I think there are teams out there with a very low "ceiling" on their robots/teams performance that would not be solved with infinite amount of time available to them. This can be due to lack talent/resources/skill/capability/knowledge or whatever terminology you want to use.

However, I think there is a much larger subset of teams that do have the knowledge/talent/capability to have a high "ceiling" but run out of time to realize the "ceiling" that they have.

I get to watch a lot of the same teams in person at FIM districts and see a lot of the same teams from the first to second event. There are many that fall into the too little too late to make it into the DCMP. Many matches in the district system allows you to iterate and get better, with more time than regionals, but you still need to come out punching or you'll miss the DCMP boat. Believe me, been there, done that.

I'm in favor of removing bag day because I see many teams reach their "ceiling" at their second event and be competitive, when they were barely able to perform at their first event.

Also, removing should remove a level of bureaucracy with the sign in and out that is not value added IMO.

People have shown to be very adaptive to the situation they were given. I don't think there will be the extreme cases of eliminating bag day will cause all the robots to be competitive, or it will burn all the mentors and students out. I just think it will help the middle tier teams reach their potential. To me, it's not that drastic of a change.

[Whatever]

This is kind of minor point but I haven't seen anyone make it.

Over 20+ years as an engineer in the semiconductor industry I have learned to appreciate good marketing requirements at the beginning of a project. There is nothing is worse than working on a project with shifting requirements and projects with really poor requirements have a habit of getting a lot of good engineers laid off. In FRC the equivalent to market requirements is the robot strategy that drives the build season. I would argue that consistently good teams are the teams that do the best job of predicting how the game is going to be played early in the build season. More build time and more chances to reset the design does de-emphasize this aspect of the program.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Deke

I think these are two great points on this subject:





The following is just from my own observations from watching competitions over the years in a district system.

I think there are teams out there with a very low "ceiling" on their robots/teams performance that would not be solved with infinite amount of time available to them. This can be due to lack talent/resources/skill/capability/knowledge or whatever terminology you want to use.

However, I think there is a much larger subset of teams that do have the knowledge/talent/capability to have a high "ceiling" but run out of time to realize the "ceiling" that they have.

...

I'm in favor of removing bag day because I see many teams reach their "ceiling" at their second event and be competitive, when they were barely able to perform at their first event.

I've snipped out a couple of pretty major points.

1) Yes, there are teams that, given an infinite amount of time will simply not be able to build a functional, let alone, competitive robot.

2) I'm not convinced of this. I'm convinced they run out of time because they think their ceiling is far higher than it realistically should be.

3) I think this is more an issue of teams needing to compete more.

[indieFan]

Originally Posted by D.Allred

Interesting point. FIRST's goal is to inspire students and grow to reach as many students as possible. It emphasizes Gracious Professionalism and Co-opertition. Engineering and competition are just a means to that end.

The change to a district event structure actually emphasizes competition more than dropping bag day. (More matches... same money ... better use of resources is the theme presented.) Are districts overemphasizing competition?

I can see the argument going both ways.

No: The districts can be seen as allowing for the iterative process because you test your robot, then make changes. All engineering requires an iterative process.

Yes: For the reasons you mention above, plus the goal of getting to DCMP.

Personally, not only would I like to keep SBD, but I would like to get rid of the unbag times before the districts. Unbag times defeat the purpose of SBD. (Unbag times between events makes sense to fix things.)

I've been on teams that went to regionals, champs, and districts. Districts are the same length of time as regionals (3 days), so why is there a different structure to the unbagging rules? It makes no sense to me.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by indieFan

Personally, not only would I like to keep SBD, but I would like to get rid of the unbag times before the districts. Unbag times defeat the purpose of SBD. (Unbag times between events makes sense to fix things.)

I've been on teams that went to regionals, champs, and districts. Districts are the same length of time as regionals (3 days), so why is there a different structure to the unbagging rules? It makes no sense to me.

Regionals and District Events are not the same lengths of time. Using your team's event schedule, PNW Glacier Peak had load-in on Friday (11 March 2016) at 5PM. Opening Ceremonies were the next day at 10:30AM, and Awards were scheduled for the following day at 4PM. Also in 2016, Robodox went to the LA Regional, which loaded in 6PM Wednesday (9 March 2016). Opening Ceremonies weren't until Friday at 8:30AM, and closing ceremonies were scheduled for Saturday 4:30PM. District unbag time is replacing the Thursday you see between load-in and Opening Ceremonies on the LA Regional schedule.

Originally Posted by Mr V

Yes FRC is supposed to at least resemble the real world of engineering and in the real world deadlines are common and in some cases there are penalties that can be financial in nature to the company and if the company has to pay up because that deadline was missed the person or persons who failed to meet that internal deadline are likely to come under the scrutiny of their boss.

This sounds essentially like what can happen if you miss a deadline for FRC, wherein deadline = event. SBD is an artificial deadline before that happens, and it isn't a hard one at that. It's just harder for some than others. Changing this would require not just banning the WH allowance but banning practice bots and other development, which, in addition to not having a clear meaning is the clearest example of holding back student inspiration and development that I can think of. My kids have learned and grown incredibly with practice bots over the years, not to mention the difference between unbag time and regional pit time.

[gblake]

My one-liner - "I support tightening the current stop-build restrictions because I don't want to see the total FRC program slide too far down the slippery slope of over-emphasizing the competition part of an otherwise well-rounded spectrum of activities."

Something that I think fits into the topic(s) of some recent posts ...

IMO, there is a tangible difference between inspiring someone to consider becoming a Scientist, Technologist, Engineer, or Mathematician (or whatever), and attempting to actually transform an inspired person into one of those.

Like most/all of us, I love seeing students become better at STEM skills, but I also try to stay aware of the difference between creating the inspiration, and subsequently taking on responsibility for replacing the formal training available from other sources.

Sure, you feed the STEM hunger of eager/inspired students, and you feed them as much as you and they can handle - because it's fun.

But, while there is no doubt a lot of overlap between inspiration and subsequent training, the two things aren't interchangeable.

When planning club/team activities, whenever we reached the point of having to choose/recommend how we are going to spend our chunks of scarce time, I try to think hard about whether I/we should invest those hours and energy into making an OK robot better, or into introducing new people to STEM opportunities.

Those two things certainly aren't 100% mutually-exclusive, but they aren't 100% identical either; and the clock is a merciless taskmaster.

Blake

[D.Allred]

Originally Posted by indieFan

I can see the argument going both ways.

No: The districts can be seen as allowing for the iterative process because you test your robot, then make changes. All engineering requires an iterative process.

Yes: For the reasons you mention above, plus the goal of getting to DCMP.

Personally, not only would I like to keep SBD, but I would like to get rid of the unbag times before the districts. Unbag times defeat the purpose of SBD. (Unbag times between events makes sense to fix things.)

I've been on teams that went to regionals, champs, and districts. Districts are the same length of time as regionals (3 days), so why is there a different structure to the unbagging rules? It makes no sense to me.

Thanks for the clarification. I have a better understanding of your perspective.

I'd rather extend that unbagging rule to regional teams than deny districts that option. We'll agree to disagree on that point.

It's a good debate to have. However, the survey didn't address this middle ground that already exists within the district system.

David

[jman4747]

Originally Posted by indieFan

I wrote something very similar to this in my survey.

The question FRC needs to ask itself is: Does it want to emphasize the engineering, including the trade-offs that are required (everything has a trade-off), or does it want to emphasize winning a competition?

You need excellent engineering skills to win in a competition in the first place. Yes giving teams more time with the robot would likely help people "win" more, but ask your self why. Getting more time to work directly on the subject of the team's engineering efforts I presume would give more opportunity to improve the engineering skills of the students.

Why bag up the primary teaching tool at the point when we have the most mentor, student, and sponsor engagement of any other time of the year?

[indieFan]

Originally Posted by jman4747

You need excellent engineering skills to win in a competition in the first place. Yes giving teams more time with the robot would likely help people "win" more, but ask your self why. Getting more time to work directly on the subject of the team's engineering efforts I presume would give more opportunity to improve the engineering skills of the students.

Why bag up the primary teaching tool at the point when we have the most mentor, student, and sponsor engagement of any other time of the year?

1. If you're primary teaching tool is at that time, then you're not utilizing the rest of your year well.

2. If you need to "win" because of sponsor donations, you need to reset in the sponsor's minds what this program is about.

3. Engineers have drop dead dates. When they don't meet those dates, there are stiff penalties, typically financial in nature. The lesson of a drop dead date seems to be getting lost on people these days.

[Mr V]

Originally Posted by indieFan

3. Engineers have drop dead dates. When they don't meet those dates, there are stiff penalties, typically financial in nature. The lesson of a drop dead date seems to be getting lost on people these days.

Yes FRC is supposed to at least resemble the real world of engineering and in the real world deadlines are common and in some cases there are penalties that can be financial in nature to the company and if the company has to pay up because that deadline was missed the person or persons who failed to meet that internal deadline are likely to come under the scrutiny of their boss.

[jman4747]

Originally Posted by indieFan

1. If you're primary teaching tool is at that time, then you're not utilizing the rest of your year well.

2. If you need to "win" because of sponsor donations, you need to reset in the sponsor's minds what this program is about.

3. Engineers have drop dead dates. When they don't meet those dates, there are stiff penalties, typically financial in nature. The lesson of a drop dead date seems to be getting lost on people these days.

1. I am... I said "the most" not "the only". The most motivation to learn what can be at times less exciting material and skills comes during the excitement of build season. Competitions also provide a quick pay off and referendum of the work you did. Gratification for what you did right and the resultant consequences of your mistakes. It is the most effective learning environment IMHO.

2. By "Sponsor engagement" I mean that I have the most material and financial resources available to me via sponsors than any other time of the year. None of our sponsors care much about how well we do at competitions.

3. A competition is just a better drop dead date to me. The consequences are more tangible. It's also not like I can't set my own deadlines for my students anyway.