Building more than one robot / expanding the "season"

[Mr. Van]

On another thread, Joe Johnson said:

"Autonomy is forcing every team I know that is serious about trying to maximize there chances of doing well in the robot competition to build 2 robots -- one to ship and one to program autonomous mode with while you wait to compete at the regionals and championships. This is a serious problem for FIRST in the long run (more serious than the topic of this thread, imho), but it is off topic for this already overheated thread."

I agree that this is a very important thing to consider.

As far as I can see, it changes things substantially. Instead of "we have 6 weeks to build, test, program, etc. and then it goes in a box..." it is becoming "we have 6 weeks to build, and an additional 3-5 weeks to program, test, practice, etc." During the additional time, we can modify the test robot, collect the same "raw" materials and then "fix" the "actual" robot at a competition. Heck, if you weld the entire thing, you can bring a part that has been completely fabricated after ship date and put it on your "actual" robot, after having tested it with your "practice" robot for weeks and weeks.

Why is FIRST allowing teams to keep the controller this year?

Am I way out of wack here?

-Mr. Van
Coach, 599

[KenWittlief]

your only a little out of wack - two or three good wacks should fix you right up :^)

FIRST has said this year that any spare parts you make must be shipped with the robot on the ship date <- EDIT: this part is wrong - see corrections in posts below

- you cant keep making spares at your home site after the ship date, then swap them on your bot at an event.

But you do bring up a good point - in addtion to giving the students driver practice time (which I think is ok) - having a clone-bot also allows you to debug your machine after you shipped it

and as you said, fix the bugs in the original when you get to your first event.

in that regard, yes this does seem to be against the spirit of the rules - it allows teams to do the design and build phases of the design cycle in 6 weeks, then do the test and debug phases after the ship date

so in effect, teams that can afford to clone their bot get a 9 or 10 week 'project schedule' and teams that cant have to finish everything in 6 weeks.

[Joe Johnson]

I think you BOTH are wacked ;-)

As far as I know, the rules say you can bring spare PARTS (not assemblies) with you to the competition as long as they were made during the 6 weeks.

Am I wrong?

Joe J.

[KenWittlief]

ok - Joe is right - you dont have to ship them in your robot crate, but you have to make them during the six weeks after the kickoff:

from team update 6:

�� Fabrication of parts during the 6-week period following the Kickoff and at events.

During the six week period following Kickoff
You may fabricate spare parts for replacement purposes of items on your robot as long as they are exact replacements for parts on the robot you shipped to the event.
They must be brought to the event in a completely disassembled state as individual components (no bolt-on assemblies).

so if you want to fix a bug you found after you shipped your bot, you would have to bring raw materials and fabricate the new parts at the event, in the pits - you cant build any parts back at your site after you shipped your bot.

[seanwitte]

This is a rule that I do not agree with. You have 6 weeks to build a robot, period. Designing and writing software is no different than building a part. You can't build spare parts so why should you be able to write spare code? They provide a test platform so its not as if no work can be done before the robot is completed. It is a design challenge to build software that can cleanly scale from the EDU controller to the full-size controller. I do not think teams need a great autonomous program to be successful. The game this year will not be won or lost in the first 15 seconds, but that 15 seconds provides a much more interesting design challenge to the software people. There seems to be a slant towards the mechanical side of robotics in FIRST and this is step towards validating the software side. I think they need to keep the autonomous period intact but level the playing field.

[KenWittlief]

I dont know if I agree with your assesment of auton mode. if you dont get the release ball in auton, then your sides scoring object dont fall until T=45

thats 30 seconds of playtime with nothing on the floor to herd - I think that will be a big factor

also, if your auton is really good, you can not only get the release ball, but maybe snarf a 2X ball, or start sweeping up the small ones that have dropped.

I think auton mode will be a deciding factor this year.

[Joe Johnson]

After our team fiasco of trying to build 2 robots our first year of FIRST (1996), I swore an oath* that I would never try that again.

I spent the next 6 years telling any rookies that would listen that they should spend the time finishing ONE robot faster in order to get drive time for their students.

Last year, autonomous mode changed my mind. I maintain that it is 10 to 100 times more likely that you will have a competitive autonomous mode if you build a second robot. Given that autonomous mode was huge last year (and figures to be huge this year imho), building 2 robots with lower capability is more likely to help your team than having 1 supercapable robot with a so-so autonomous mode.

So... ...I now tell every rookie team that will listen that they should plan on building 2 robots.

A wise man's mind changes and a fool's mind changes not...

Joe J.



*For those who take oaths seriously, myself included, please note that in this context, I use the term for effect, I did NOT actually swear an oath that I am now breaking.

[Jessica Boucher]

Geez, we just jump from one controversy to the next, don't we?

Honestly, this has been going on for years. And even though it looks unfair from the outside, just because they may have a couple of extra weeks to tweak with a second one, doesn't mean they're unbeatable in competition. If they were unbeatable, the retention rate would have dropped off long ago, because smaller teams would see a lost cause.
You also have to think about natural driver skill. You may be only able to build one robot, but that kid painting the crate in the corner just may be a star driver in disguise.

So give it your all, the David beats the Goliath more than you think.

[Ricky Q.]

This is the first year that we are building two robots as a team. Both are fairly close to each other in construction, with the main focus being put on the competition bot. The primary function that the "clone" bot will serve is the one of driver training and autonomous programming, it is an advantage, and I'm glad we decided to do it.

[KenWittlief]

something our team did this year that really helped out with auton mode is we built a pratice robot before the kickoff meeting, using the 2x4 alum frames and 3/8 plywood base, and the stock FIRST transmissions and drill motors from last year (with old RCs from previous machines)

this allowed our students to build something that ran around on the floor before the kickoff, so they got some confidence in their abilities

and it lets students pratice driving something

and it let us mount a gyro sensor and contact switches and play with the IR sensors in the first few weeks of the program - so we had the basis of our auton mode working on our practice bot (named Frank BTW)

switching it over to the real machine is not hard now, we do have to translate from Pbasic to C - but we are confident that our approach is solid and wont take too much tweaking on KG1 (our real bot for this year: KateGleasonOne)

I keep threating to post photos of Frank on here - I will get to it - maybe tonight (I dont have a digital camera, it 'dissapeared' when my daughter went off to college - I wonder where it could be?!)

[Aaron Lussier]

This is also the first year 151 is trying to build two robots.

-Gives drivers loads of pratice
-Gives Software loads of time to get the code just right

These robots are going to be exactly the same. We have expermented with a second plywood bot for testing but we have found that after the drivers use the pratice bot for a while and then switch to the real robot, there feel for it is off. This is something we did not want to happen again, hence two "real" robots.

-Aaron

[NoRemorse]

The only reasons i see this is fair is for Driver practice. I seem to find that ok, and fair to other teams.

on a side note (related to question):
Can we build ou r controls after the 6 week build?
I mean, continue to add switches and such, or is that not a good idea?
I could go both ways on this one.

[seanwitte]

Originally Posted by NoRemorse

Can we build ou r controls after the 6 week build?
I mean, continue to add switches and such, or is that not a good idea?

Yes, you can work on the OI after the robot ships. If you haven't had time to pretty it up or you don't like the layout you can keep working on it.

[Mr. Van]

Originally Posted by seanwitte

Yes, you can work on the OI after the robot ships. If you haven't had time to pretty it up or you don't like the layout you can keep working on it.

This is sort of what I was getting at. As a teacher/coach/mentor, working an additional 30 hours a week during "build season" is something that I plan for and my wife is able to cope with. The problem comes in when "ship-date" is not the end of the intensive building season - it is just the beginning of the intensive driving/autonomous programming season.

How do other mentors/coaches feel about this?

-Mr. Van

[KenWittlief]

wife?!

you still have a wife?!

this must be your 1st year :^)

lots of mentors catch grief from all directions for the amount of time we spend on this program - FIRST should start a parallel program for all the "FIRST Widows" out there. Find something for them to do when we all dissapear into the black hole for 6 to 10 weeks each winter.