Discussion: Release Team Field Drawings Early

[Jon Stratis]

Undoubtedly, having field elements on hand while prototyping, building, and testing leads to improvements in team robots. And yes, lower resource teams typically build fewer/no field elements.

But the solution isn't to give everyone more time for them. Think about it... kickoff is the first weekend in January. If you release the drawings a week early, you're backing into December with them many years - I don't know about everyone else, but that last week in December I'm out of the state with family. School is out, and many students are taking trips with family. Meeting to build field elements during that time won't work for a whole lot of people.

On the other hand, take a high resource team. Given their resources (which most likely include larger number of people), they can likely have someone available to build the field elements. And then once they have the field elements, why not start playing around with prototypes that can interact with those elements? Sure, you don't have the game rules, so 50% of your prototypes might be useless... but you're a high resource team so you can afford to waste those resources.


If you really want to help bump up those teams that don't have the person-power to build field elements after kickoff, then we should get someone like AndyMark to partner with first, take pre-orders for cheap field elements (You won't know what you're getting, you'll just know it's $100 for a set of field elements that year), then distribute them with the KoP at kickoff. Maybe have some assembly required (IKEA style assembly), designed to be assembled by 5 people in 4 hours or less.

Sure, you'll still have low resource teams that maybe feel like they can't afford that. But that's where high resource teams come in - Why not provide an option when pre-ordering your field elements to buy 1-3 extra for teams in your area? Let the RD's know a week ahead of time how many extra they have, and they can work to make sure those extra's get to the teams that could really benefit from them the most.

[Jay O'Donnell]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

Undoubtedly, having field elements on hand while prototyping, building, and testing leads to improvements in team robots. And yes, lower resource teams typically build fewer/no field elements.

But the solution isn't to give everyone more time for them. Think about it... kickoff is the first weekend in January. If you release the drawings a week early, you're backing into December with them many years - I don't know about everyone else, but that last week in December I'm out of the state with family. School is out, and many students are taking trips with family. Meeting to build field elements during that time won't work for a whole lot of people.

On the other hand, take a high resource team. Given their resources (which most likely include larger number of people), they can likely have someone available to build the field elements. And then once they have the field elements, why not start playing around with prototypes that can interact with those elements? Sure, you don't have the game rules, so 50% of your prototypes might be useless... but you're a high resource team so you can afford to waste those resources.


If you really want to help bump up those teams that don't have the person-power to build field elements after kickoff, then we should get someone like AndyMark to partner with first, take pre-orders for cheap field elements (You won't know what you're getting, you'll just know it's $100 for a set of field elements that year), then distribute them with the KoP at kickoff. Maybe have some assembly required (IKEA style assembly), designed to be assembled by 5 people in 4 hours or less.

Sure, you'll still have low resource teams that maybe feel like they can't afford that. But that's where high resource teams come in - Why not provide an option when pre-ordering your field elements to buy 1-3 extra for teams in your area? Let the RD's know a week ahead of time how many extra they have, and they can work to make sure those extra's get to the teams that could really benefit from them the most.

I've always wondered why FIRST didn't distribute game elements like this. It makes a lot of sense to me.

[Knufire]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

If you really want to help bump up those teams that don't have the person-power to build field elements after kickoff, then we should get someone like AndyMark to partner with first, take pre-orders for cheap field elements (You won't know what you're getting, you'll just know it's $100 for a set of field elements that year), then distribute them with the KoP at kickoff.

This is a good solution, but I'm unsure if it's feasible from a cost standpoint. Look at the cost of a half-field for FTC for comparsion: http://www.andymark.com/FTC17-p/am-3375_0b.htm. Without the game pieces, it still comes to a total of $295 + shipping.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

If you really want to help bump up those teams that don't have the person-power to build field elements after kickoff, then we should get someone like AndyMark to partner with first, take pre-orders for cheap field elements (You won't know what you're getting, you'll just know it's $100 for a set of field elements that year), then distribute them with the KoP at kickoff. Maybe have some assembly required (IKEA style assembly), designed to be assembled by 5 people in 4 hours or less.

So I desperately want all the drawing improvements (so frustratingly overdue), and I'd do anything for official CAD released at kickoff. Also love the cut list hint!


My biggest thought, though, is Jon+Knufire's AndyMark discussion above. I wonder whether AM would be interested in surveying this for 2017. Don't actually manufacture or distribute anything (just prototypes). But present the idea and after kickoff say, "okay, if you'd pre-ordered the $100 kit this year, you would've gotten X. The $250 would've added Y, the $N kit added Q..."

If the hypothetical kits get a good "I'd buy that" response, maybe consider a real pilot in 2018, setup similar to the chassis opt out. Personally if AM thinks something like this is feasible, I'd trust them to give me the most critical/useful/sensitive/annoying-to-build-myself field elements for my pre-order price. If you end up not wanting to do a task, I bet someone around you would love to take that particular element off your hands.

I know this is a huge task and pressure in a dozen ways, and I wouldn't expect a yes from AM. But if so and the price points work out, this could help a lot of really striving teams. It also potentially doesn't have to be AM alone; we have so many good orgs in FRC now that the element choices could be endorsed by multiple trusted big names under NDAs (possibly with a distribution of work between them and/or branding).