Eliminating "Start Build Day"

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by New Lightning

Personally I believe that banning the use of practice robots is one of the most ludicrous idea's that I have ever heard proposed as a solution. I get that many teams don't have the resources to build one, and that it gives and "unfair" advantage to the teams that do.

We build them, so it's not about the money.

Originally Posted by New Lightning

If you don't like it, then do something about it on your own team.

The thing I don't like is the never-ending time drain that FIRST has become since the withholding allowance became reality. Unless the thing I need to "do about" "on my own team" is squeezing more time per year out of the spacetime continuum, your response is missing my point by a great deal.

Cheers.

[Mark Sheridan]

Originally Posted by waialua359

As others have mentioned whether or not pre-fabricated parts should be allowed, this would be a big positive step if this was allowed.
Why not? Its not like anyone knows the game yet.

I see no harm in pre-fabricating a drivetrain before build season, and then utilizing it if they choose so when the game is announced.
We are already allowing a 40lb allowance during competitions. If not then, how about 40lbs of pre-fab parts too? No difference here.

I like this, it allows teams to invest more in internal fabrication, students have more time to learn to make parts and those parts could be used in season.

It also opens up opportunities for teams to help out other teams when their fab shop has a lighter load. Last year, we really only opened our shop to other teams with broaching hexs.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Mechanical iteration and drive practice are still allowed, so I expect it would not stop anyone from building a practice robot. Even if they had to throw out and rewrite any code they worked on at home.

Keep going!

Oh, the the mechanical iteration is simple - Any parts not manufactured during BUILD SEASON or at THE EVENT are not allowed to be used.

The drive practice - not sure you can mandate that to teams.



And I also still think this is a terrible line of thought.

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by pfreivald

The thing I don't like is the never-ending time drain that FIRST has become since the withholding allowance became reality. Unless the thing I need to "do about" "on my own team" is squeezing more time per year out of the spacetime continuum, your response is missing my point by a great deal.

Cheers.

I with you on this.
One of the biggest deterrent to kids joining our program is time commitment. There is already a LOT of it.
This goes for mentors as well. With suggestions to increase build season time being discussed here, I'm not so sure I can find mentors that will decide they can continue if I ask even MORE time from them.

I guess its all relative. Its what we are used to and asking more time to commit to build will and can become the new norm.
Just not sure if I can personally.

I hope my 2nd grade daughter wants to do robotics i.e. vex iq in the next few years.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Oh, the the mechanical iteration is simple - Any parts not manufactured during BUILD SEASON or at THE EVENT are not allowed to be used.

And the enforcement would need to be photos/videos taken on Stop Build, available to inspectors. Whooo boy. That's going to be tough.

Oh, and the signatures.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by EricH

And the enforcement would need to be photos/videos taken on Stop Build, available to inspectors. Whooo boy. That's going to be tough.

Oh, and the signatures.

Welcome to The 2018 FIRST Robotics Competition: Bureaucracy Bash!

[Sean Raia]

Originally Posted by JustinCAD

By January, many high school students are just getting back from Winter break and are just getting back into the flow of school. Because of this, the work load seems much greater than any other time throughout the year. This is because students got a taste of a break from school, meaning they need to get "re-calibrated" (I know, bad term for it) for school in general.

Having kickoff this same time, with the added stress of getting back into the flow of school, is kind of a detriment in my eyes.

Moving it to later in the year, I think students would be more into the flow of things and would enjoy it better rather than thinking of it as un-needed extra work.

I don't see how high school students are at any time unable to participate in robotics due to a high school workload.
I went to a relatively high ranked public school and I'll say that not once did I feel overwhelmed by the amount of work I was expected to do alongside robotics. I'm not a special case either, many of my friends felt the same. We all had ample time to participate in robotics, study, and play plenty of video games

[EricH]

You didn't happen to have any school-related or school-organized activities other than robotics, did you? You know, like sports/band?

See, if you're only in robotics, you have that time. If not... you have multiple activities trying to take that time away. Something will eventually have to give--and it'll be either sleep, sanity, or schedule. And my money is that either all three give in that order, or that schedule gives first and saves the other two.

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by EricH

You didn't happen to have any school-related or school-organized activities other than robotics, did you? You know, like sports/band?

See, if you're only in robotics, you have that time. If not... you have multiple activities trying to take that time away. Something will eventually have to give--and it'll be either sleep, sanity, or schedule. And my money is that either all three give in that order, or that schedule gives first and saves the other two.

I can second this. I can't even begin to describe the struggle it is to keep kids involved in the fall when they're doing swimming, cross country, volleyball, or other activities, or how tough it is in the spring when they leave the team for softball, golf, or whatever else.

Some schools have 2000 students, and when you consider that many activities have limited space, that space goes towards the students who dedicate themselves to that activity. I can certainly understand how, in that situation, many of the students on a team wouldn't have any other activities to compete during the rest of the year.

But other schools are smaller. Much smaller. The one I work with is in the 300-400 range. At that size, just about every student is involved in multiple activities. Thinking back over the past few years, I can think of only one of our captain's that didn't also have another activity in the off-season (and in some cases, were captains for those activities as well). And these are some of the most dedicated students we've had.

The smaller the school, the more hats every student wears. I won't say it's a bad thing (exploring more activities is rather a good thing, I think)... but it does mean that you need to be careful about overlapping activities. Stretching FIRST across even more sports seasons would force some of these students to make a choice, which I don't think is something we really want to do.

[AlexanderTheOK]

I started a vex team summer of 2015 and I actually really rather liked the year round schedule.

The main reason was that it didn't have too be year round. My students met once a week starting a month after school ended, and ending at our last event. It was refreshingly relaxing to just... teach robotics.

Many teams affiliated with schools however start with the school year, and that works for them too. The year round system lets you make your own build season tailored for your resources.

I still don't know if I would want such a thing for FRC though. One of the big draws for me as a student was the intensity of it. I enjoyed having my life revolve around it for a short period of time and then going back to other things. I'm sure there are others that prefer the opposite end of the spectrum.