Practicing after Ship - pros & cons

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Originally Posted by Kris Verdeyen

Con: It makes the rules inconsistent

The obvious new question brought up by the ruling is, "Can we update the software on our practice robot between the FIW and the competition?"

The simple answer, suggested by the (flawed) ruling issued by the FIRST Q/A team, is, "Yes, Of course! It's a practice robot, change all the code you want!"

Kris,
I searched the Q&A and did not find the quote above. Can you elaborate?

[Kris Verdeyen]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

Kris,
I searched the Q&A and did not find the quote above. Can you elaborate?

I wasn't quoting the Q/A - I was extending their ruling to its conclusion, which I belive is not consistent with other rules. The quote is here:

Q: Does <R14>, particularly "the team must put down their tools", preclude teams from using their tools to build, repair, and/or modify a practice robot between the Fix-it Window and competition? Simply, can teams "practice" after the FIW?

A: Teams can practice after the Fix-It window but anything you work on cannot be brought to the competition if it violates any rules.

My point is that the ruling on Q/A 1026 is inconsistent with the "no software development" rule, because practicing is the same thing as software development.

[preussrobotics]

After taking a complete week off from anything related to robotics, we spend our post ship time practicing other aspects of the competition. Mainly public speaking, PR materials, Chairman's Award presentation, etc. are worked on.

[Matt]

I was a driver last year and it was great having a practice robot. I would not have been able to drive it if I did not have this time. Most of the drivers on the teams are seniors. This is their last semester so school is pretty much over. It is not taxing on a schedule at all.

[kevinw]

Originally Posted by Kris Verdeyen

If you practice after the FIW, and the driver so much as opens his mouth to complain about how the robot handles, he's doing software development.

I see a difference here.

If you practice after the FIW, and a wheel falls off, you would put it back on and continue practicing. If it falls off again, you may make a mental note that when you get to the competition, you should look into making the wheel more robust. You can not make modifications and bring them. You can not develop design modifications. All you may do is put the wheel back on and continue practicing.

If the driver complains about how the robot handles, you can make a mental note that when you get to the competition, you should look into improving the handling. You can not spend the necessary time to tweak the gains, etc. after the FIW. All you may do is make a mental note and continue practicing.

This seems consistent to me.

[Kims Robot]

Originally Posted by Gui Cavalcanti

I believe that practicing after ship date is a huge con for students. My main argument is that FIRST is supposed to be a simulation of the real world of engineering; you don't wait to test and refine a product until after it has shipped! If you are designing a product, you must factor in appropriate refinement time during it's development cycle. If you want to field an advanced robot, I believe you have to accept the fact you may not have the time to test all of its systems before competition. FIRST is as much an experience in management as it is in engineering.

As an additional con, what happens to teams that do not have the funds to create a practice robot, yet participate in one of the last regionals? Some teams may have had a month or so of pure practice time with their mock-up robots.

If you are going to argue that unfairness mirrors real-world engineering, remember that deadlines and proper scheduling also reflect real-world engineering.

I definitely agree with the funding con, it does take extra cash to build a second bot, and quite a bit at that. We have been helping a few rookie teams who I know won't have the extra money to do that.

On the flip side, while you say this mirrors real world engineering, I would say only to an extent. While deadlines are real, the timeframe FIRST gives us is rather unrealistic. Doable? Barely. Probably good for our sanity? Definitely. Realistic? Not really.

A huge portion of my time as a systems engineer is spent quoting how much time and money a project will take. I estimate how much real world time an engineer would have to spend to do the job, that creates a labor cost, we add it to the material cost, mark it up, and send it off to the customer. Often the customer will try and shorten the period for the job, but we have the opportunity to quote it first. However, we also build in time for the "unknowns" and pad even that so that we have enough time to make our deadlines. FIRST doesnt give us the opportunity to quote how much time we want.

Additionally, in the real world, you can often be a day or two late. A company has to weight the penalties against the benefits (ie are we going to ship a fully tested product and take a $1000 delivery penalty, or are we going to ship an untested product and cross our fingers?). FIRST has no option.

And 99% of companies DO test their product after they ship... how else would microsoft send out service packs? Why do companies do recalls? Just because it is out the door, does not mean the company is not still trying to improve it.

While I totally agree with FIRST's method of doing things (the 6 week limit and the drop dead date), because otherwise we would all go insane or become fried, I dont know that I can totally agree with FIRST completely mirroring real world engineering.

Sorry, I digressed a bit...

I think everyone has mentioned the pros/cons that I can think of (and more). As a team leader, I think if we can afford to build a practice drivetrain we will, but we will meet at MOST 1 night per week between competitions. Likely I would also invite local less-resourced teams in the area to practice on our bot. While it is not their own drivetrain, at least it can give them a feel for the size of the competition and strategy if they need it.

[Kris Verdeyen]

Originally Posted by kevinw

I see a difference here.

If you practice after the FIW, and a wheel falls off, you would put it back on and continue practicing. If it falls off again, you may make a mental note that when you get to the competition, you should look into making the wheel more robust. You can not make modifications and bring them. You can not develop design modifications. All you may do is put the wheel back on and continue practicing.

If the driver complains about how the robot handles, you can make a mental note that when you get to the competition, you should look into improving the handling. You can not spend the necessary time to tweak the gains, etc. after the FIW. All you may do is make a mental note and continue practicing.

This seems consistent to me.

Software development, like I said before, is as much knowing what doesn't work as it is what does. It is more than coding!

If you walk into the competition with the mental note, it is more than you would have had if you hadn't practiced. You are further down the software development path than you were at the end of the FIW; therefore you have done software development, and broken the rule.

[BRAVESaj25bd8]

Practice makes perfect. The only thing practice can do is make you better. The only thing is, if you do practice, try not to talk strategy. Everyone is so tired from all of the regular season. Practice should just be a time to get familiar with the type of drive and possibly the manipulator devices. Also, I saw in another thread that people want to practically torture their HP's. I'd say just do a shuttle run and make them stand still for 5 seconds. Then repeat. In practice do not try to analyze the game, just become familiar with it.

[fabbuki]

With this 2-day fix-it window, practice is nearly useless now. To build a second robot and test it out would have been an awesome thing to do last year, since I don't think there was a fix-it window. Now, if you make a second robot and practice with it to perfect programming and whatnot, you only have two days. After two days, your practice is OVER. Everyone must drop their tools and cease working on software and programming. Those are the rules.

Or maybe I'm wrong?

Two days is still better than nothing. Of course my team will work on perfecting the programming code after ship date, but that might be a bit difficult considering that our first bot is gone and, if we build a second bot, we'll only have two days to test and fix.

-fabbuki

[fabbuki]

I was browsing some rules and forum posts... Yes! Building a second bot and practicing with it is USEFULL. Apparently, FIRST only meant you had to put down your tools and stop working on the robot you're going to be competiting with. I think you can practice, find out some autonomous doesn't work, for instance, and remember what part of the code is screwed up so you can fix it at the competition. If this is the case, then "practice makes perfect" is truer than ever.

-fabbuki