Motors this season

[rmmlg]

Does anyone have any intimations about what the new motors and/or speeds will be that FIRST is giving us? I know that some people have been designing transmissions with other motors in mind and was wondering if these motors are guesses about what FIRST will be giving us this season.

[JVN]

No one knows the contents of the kit of parts.
Many speculate, but these are just guesses.
We'll find out for sure at kickoff.

Most teams who do pre-season design, simply use the "historical" FIRST motors from previous years. There is a high probability we will have a drill, chiaphua, and FP motor in the kit this year... simply because we had them last year.


Also,
http://www.andymark.biz/am-planetary.htm

If you look here, you will see a new product from AndyMark, Inc which takes a Drill or FP motor, and converts it into the speed of a Chiaphua motor. Because of this, many teams (ours included) are simply designing transmissions with all chiaphua motors, and planning on using AndyMark Planetary adapters to use whichever motors seem convenient next season.

If the kit doesn't include ANY of these motors, then it's back to the drawing board.

We believe that pre-season design is beneficial to our team, even if NONE of our designs are useable.
It gives everyone some practice.


John

[Rosiebotboss]

Pre Season design could also be said to be "cheating".

Isn't the entire design, build, test, rebuild, test again, final assembly, and ship process supposed to be accomplished within the 6 weeks?

[Jack Jones]

Originally Posted by Rosiebotboss

Pre Season design could also be said to be "cheating".

Isn't the entire design, build, test, rebuild, test again, final assembly, and ship process supposed to be accomplished within the 6 weeks?

NO, it's not cheating. Just the fabrication and beyond must be done within the six week period. Designs can remain or evolve, from pre-season and previous seasons.

[JVN]

Originally Posted by Rosiebotboss

Pre Season design could also be said to be "cheating".

Isn't the entire design, build, test, rebuild, test again, final assembly, and ship process supposed to be accomplished within the 6 weeks?

I think very few would refer to preseason design as "cheating".

I would come right out and say, NO the entire process is NOT supposed to be accomplished within the 6 weeks. Many teams (mine included) do design work ahead of time. Sometimes, these designs get used as-is during the 6-weeks. More often, these designs get improved/tweaked/adapted for the new game.

Re-engineering is engineering too.

I think it is cool that our kids get a chance to design something, then get to redesign it to adapt to a new game. Last year we designed a 6 motor, 2 speed drivetrain in the fall semester. When the game was unveiled, we were forced to change this design so it could climb the 6" step. We also changed it to a 2-motor design, and greatly simplified/improved it.

The lessons we learned from the fall drivetrain, helped us greatly during the actual 6-weeks. Our drivetrain this season, was rock solid. I believe this was due to our prototyping/testing/improvements done during the fall.

Being smart is cheating?
Thinking how to improve previous designs is cheating?
Doing FIRST design outside of the 6-weeks is cheating?
I'm a cheater.


JVN

[Dave Campbell]

Originally Posted by Rosiebotboss

Pre Season design could also be said to be "cheating".

Isn't the entire design, build, test, rebuild, test again, final assembly, and ship process supposed to be accomplished within the 6 weeks?

I have been arguing that dilemma for years...As a teacher, I want my students (both college and high school) to gain as much knowledge as possible. This includes designs for robots during the off-season. We simply explore and design drive systems for various mobile machines. This is the "Inspiration" in FIRST.
On the other hand, are specific designs part of the competition and therefore limited to the Jan-Feb build season? I believe that they are. While we train our team in the fall, we do not design specific parts for our competition robot. We do analyze some of the team's designs from the previous years. We did use the Team 716 dual motor non-shifting gearbox last season with great success.

I know FIRST will provide another challenging contest and provide a great KOP, with new motors for all of the teams to create their amazing machines. Like John, I'm thinking that they have stuck with drill motors, FP, Globe and Chiaphua.

John, you are an inspirer, not a cheater. We can not close our eyes, ears and minds from March to December.

[Yov]

Well, it's not technically cheating, but it gives you an unfair advantage over rookie teams.
On the other hand, FIRST isn't supossed to be 100% fair, while a veteran team may have half abot ready before the 6 weeks, a rookie team could have thrice the funding, so it's all really a matter of perspective...

[Rosiebotboss]

Maybe "cheating" was a bad choice of words. Our philosophy is focused on the learning experience. Along with the learning is the experience of a very real deadline. The students may not that in a classroom. If a term paper is turned in late, you may get marked down a grade. If a robot is shipped late, you don't play.

Sometimes engineering is a trade off. Or how to make the best decision given two options. If I spend time doing this, then I will not have time to develop that fully. I think that is the whole reason of the six weeks. It shouldn't be a "We can build a robot that can do everything" situation. Its more of a "we built a robot that does this very well.........and we're good at this other thing."

Besides, there are plenty of other programs out there for keeping your core group together and designing and building things. Look at our Road Iron project, the pothole detector. All the motors, controls, pneumatics etc are FIRST kit parts...................

[Jack Jones]

Originally Posted by Dave Campbell

...
On the other hand, are specific designs part of the competition and therefore limited to the Jan-Feb build season? I believe that they are. While we train our team in the fall, we do not design specific parts for our competition robot. ...

That could be extended to mean that design (CAD) components from, say, first cad library or manufacture supplied, would have to be re-drawn during the build. That does not make any sense,. Nor does drawing a prototype part off season, then pretending you didn't. I see a real difference between a physical and a virtual part when it comes to the build season. Either not creating the CAD or throwing it out would be like having a mental image of a concept, then inducing amnesia for the sake of sportsmanship.

[Peter Matteson]

Back to the original topic...

I'm suspecting the the globes will be back. Beyond those I have little confidence in what we are getting. The FPs differ so much in power I consider it a new motor.

I'm of the less popular belief that we will see smaller less powerful mototrs this year and have a smaller envelope. Speed and stregth of the robots has gotten dangerous over the last few years and I think that will be reflected in new motor choices this year.

My $0.02
Pete

[MikeDubreuil]

You have to stop thinking about what FIRST will put into the kit based on their desires and start thinking about what companies will donate (or vastly reduce the cost) of their motor to FIRST.

I think every motor we have seen a history of will be included in the kit: Van Door Window, Seat, Globe, Fisher Price and Chips. The Bosch drill motors are a different story; we presume they will not be in the kit based on Bosch discounting them. However, I feel Bosch will step up to the plate as Fisher Price did. Fisher Price changed motors, but still continued to donate to the program.

Bosch is in a slightly different position than Fisher Price. From what I've heard on the board, they are discontinuing the use of 12V motors. In that case, they have either stockpiled 12V motors for us, or will provide us with higher voltage motors which we will just run at 12V.

[Ian W.]

Originally Posted by MikeDubreuil

Bosch is in a slightly different position than Fisher Price. From what I've heard on the board, they are discontinuing the use of 12V motors. In that case, they have either stockpiled 12V motors for us, or will provide us with higher voltage motors which we will just run at 12V.

Or we'll get higher voltage (24V) systems. Hey, it's not exactly something we need, but it'd be kinda neat to see how much more powerful the robots could get with higher voltage motors.

[Matt Reiland]

The only motor that I have high confidence in staying is the Atwood due to the custom output shaft specifically for FIRST. In my mind, anyone who spends the cash to change the output on a motor plans on keeping it around for quite a while to make the cost worth it.

As for designs in the off-season, I am with JVN. Now that you can BUY any transmission you want off the shelf there shouldn't be any restrictions on teams spending the time and effort prototyping designs in the off season. We did the same as John with a 6 motor drivetrain in the off season yet only used 2 motors in the real robot. Anyway next year we will be back in power mode.

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by Rosiebotboss

It shouldn't be a "We can build a robot that can do everything" situation. Its more of a "we built a robot that does this very well.........and we're good at this other thing."

You are entitled to you opinion but who is one to dictate what a robot should or should not be? If a team can design a robot that does it all (like 254 and 60) and conquer the field why look down upon that? I look at it as an inspiration to try harder next year. Have you ever heard of the motto "do more"? And you know how they "did more," they reaserched and tested it before the build season.

Originally Posted by Dave Campbell

we do not design specific parts for our competition robot.

Then you are far behind the rest of us.

Originally Posted by Yov

it [pre-season designing] gives you an unfair advantage over rookie teams.

An advantage yes, an unfair advantage no. Every veteran team was a rookie at some point in time. And every rookie will become a verteran at some point in time. Everyone goes through the same process. How is this unfair? Furthermore, what is to say that a rookie team cannot research, design, build, and test robot components before the build season?

[rmmlg]

As far as I can see about the 'cheating aspect' of designing before the 6 weeks, the whole point of FIRST is to learn. Designing one transmission during the build season does not allow team members to learn nearly as much as if you design a number of designs throughout the year. I go to a junior/senior high school, so we need all the experience we can get in as short of a time period as possible.

Anyway, the reason that I posted this is that it is rumored that we will not have the Bosch and CIM that we have had in the past years. So, I was looking for some speculation as to what FIRST might put in the kit this year.