Is allowing a practice robot good for FIRST?

[Beth Sweet]

As someone who has been on both sides of this spectrum, I would have to side with the "allow practice 'bots" argument.

I am currently the team leader for a rookie team who is, to say the least, classified in the "have-nots" category. We're struggling right now to get enough money to just make a robot. But we have good kids and good mentors and we're going to make it because of our passion.

When I was on 67 the HOT Team, we always had practice 'bots. Anyone who has seen team 67 would classify them in the "have" category. They work hard and continue to do so, to gain and keep a good relationship with their sponsor who provides them with such things as the materials and machines to create a practice machine. Therefore, they have a bit more than others.

The way I see it, these are just byproducts of the fact that some teams will always have more than others. Those who want it, who have dedicated students and mentors, and who really care about the program will come back year to year and will work to get things that they want such as practice 'bots. This gives groups, like the one that I'm in charge of now, something to work for, something to look forward to. Give people something to want, to desire, all of a sudden you'll see them work harder than they ever have.

(This is solely my opinion and does not neccessarily reflect the views of my team or the rest of its members)

[Gabe Salas Jr.]

Wow. Great arguments.

This sort of reminded me back when teams with great sponsorship and dinero ('haves') were able to get their own portable machine shop for competitions. If something needed repair, the team simply went to their trailer and were able to work on it with their equipment. I felt FIRST was right in saying that it was an unfair advantage at competitions for teams to do this, and that the only way to allow this, is if you opened up that portable machine shop for all teams at competition. And I know that some teams, in fact, shared their equipment which is really nice of them.

Back on topic. I feel that FIRST should not put too many restraints that would actually hinder a team's ability for students to learn more about math, science, and technology. However, I do believe that FIRST does its best every year to make the game as fair as possible, to quote, "... to make jumping on the train a bit easier." Even though team's are not created equal (equal experience, equal sponsorship, etc.) they do have the same problem, the same kit, and the same deadline. I also believe that it is important for each team to look at other team's "solution" to the same problem. Furthermore, it is important for people to congregate and share those ideas with one another, in order to better appreciate everybody's "solution" and to learn more ideas, techniques, and information to make their "solution" more effective.

So does making a practice robot make students understand their robot better? Maybe so depending on how it is used. I cannot honestly say at this point. But our team last year built a a really basic plywood robot during the build season. We used it to allow our programmers to practice and make programs for autonomous and to figure out how to make the sensors (specifically the IR sensors last year) to work.


"But in the end, we all have to remember, it is not about the robots."


Sidenote:
*Keep in mind that teams actually building a main robot and a practice robot are technically building two robots in six weeks. More work for them. The only real problem I see with practice robots are teams that are able to tweak their practice robot after the deadline, and use it as the competition robot instead. As ungracious professional as it sounds, this may tempt teams to do so.

[Alexander McGee]

Originally Posted by Matt Adams

I think that one of the most fantastic parts about FIRST is that the biggest and most successful teams are also the most abiding to the rules.

And I will have to disagree with you. While it is nice to think this, many teams don't. Behind the shroud of GP, many teams have alternative strategies, as well as ways to not only bend the rules, but also go completely around them.

I agree 100% that GP is extremely important, and that many teams exhibit wonderful practices emphasizing GP. However, don’t kid yourself; this isn’t a perfect organization full of perfect, rule abiding teams. Many care much more about winning than following the rules, or the practice of GP. Even some of the "biggest and most successful". They may hide it well, but it is there.

On the topic of practice robots, it provides an excellent way for teams to get driving practice, as well as a way for more students to get their "hands dirty". This is especially true for large teams. However, I don’t think it is beneficial to have this robot readily available. Weather or not it is legal, I don’t like the idea of a team swapping out two robots when one is damaged (I’ve seen it done). I think this takes away from the “repair” and pit aspects of the competition.

Tis’ a double edged sword.

[dhitchco]

For all the "have not" teams, we must assume that the game will go on with the practice robots for the "other" teams. Therefore, a "have not" team can do the following:

1) Become a "have" team by doing a lot more fund-raising and awareness-generating in their community to fund a 2nd robot.

2) Partner with another team in their town that has a 2nd robot. You never know if those two teams will be pitted against each other or will be drawn as alliance partners; so just ask the other team to time-share their practice robot, field, etc.

3) On your own "have not" practice field, just simulate a robot by pushing a team member around in a wagon or shopping cart. Sure, the actual driver skills are important, but even more important to the driver is the strategy of the game (traffic on-field, other alliance robots, own alliance robots, etc.)

4) Look on E-Bay for used FIRST robots...ha, ha.

The game moves forward ONLY.......

[Mr. Van]

The issue here between "haves" and "have-nots" is far, far less about money or CNC machines. It is about mentorship. How many teams have the MENTOR / COACH / TEACHER resources to expand the season from six weeks (and a few weekends) to four months? Or to year-round?

In addition, how many teams have a space where they can build a full field where they can really practice?

One of the major issues that FIRST must address is what kind of time is it going to ask from its volunteer mentors and coaches?

-Mr. Van
Coach, 599

[KathieK]

Originally Posted by Mr. Van

The issue here between "haves" and "have-nots" is far, far less about money or CNC machines. It is about mentorship. How many teams have the MENTOR / COACH / TEACHER resources to expand the season from six weeks (and a few weekends) to four months? Or to year-round?

We're definitely a "have" team. But it's taken 11 years of hard work to get there. We invite anyone in our area to come use our practice field. We host workshops at our facility. We've spent the last four years working VERY hard to build up our parent mentor base. It's allowed us to be able to work with 6 different high schools and different school boards and paperwork, etc. It's allowed our engineers and teachers to have some "time off" when they need it. We meet year-round doing community service projects and fundraisers and a teambuilding weekend. Yes, we build two robots (when we can) so that we can have more student involvement. But I'm sure there was a time when we didn't have the resources to do that. There will always big conglomerates, big companies that have money and resources to accomplish great things. But that doesn't stop the entrepreneur from starting his/her own business and growing it.

[Josh Fritsch]

I think that there is two sides when a team decides to build a practice bot. You may say only the rich or the teams with many people build a practice bot. But I know first hand that this is untrue. I am a mentor, former 4 year team member of team 27. We are very much a veteran team however in the past three seasons we have lost almost all funding including all sponsorships this year. We have 12 students on the team this season compared to some with 40 or more and we still decided to build a practice bot. Our team feels that it is more important to focus on building two identical bots instead of devoting all the time into building one. If you look at it that way you could say that people that build one bot may have a superior bot to a team who builds two, and the people that build two rely on that the extra practice time that you get with making a second bot is more important.

Building a practice bot is perfectly OK and legal and shouldn't be taken away. Teams who do build a practice bot get the same amount of time to complete their bot as a team who builds one they just allocate their time different to allow them to do this. I don't see how you can say it widens the gap between the have and have-nots when it is not a money or facilities issue but a team preference issue. FIRST is meant for students to learn team work and communication skills working with real engineers in the real world but also for the students to build the bot to their ability. If they think they can accomplish this in a different way than another I don't see how you can justify taking this away.

If building a second bot to practice with should be taken away, should teams who choose to build a practice field to get a better understanding of the game be taken away too? You could argue that this gives the team and advantage over other teams because they can actually see the field? Whats next? saying teams can only have x amount of adult mentors because it will give that team an advantage of a team with less? It will never be equal between teams. There will always be teams with more experience or with a bigger budget or better facilities to build at. I consider my team to be a "have" team just because of that reason, we have a 9 year old team which helps us immensely when it comes to build time, but to "close the gap" we do help any team/mentor teams that asks us and provide them with some knowledge that they may not have had before. Getting a little off topic but just my 2cents

[patTeam241]

The practice robot can have positive and negative effects. I'm a member of a 'have not' team, but I can still see both sides (I think). They can give an advantage, especially in training drivers to operate the robot well, and allowing the development of new parts and code. I think that FIRST should help stop this (is that what the Fix-it window does, I didn't understand that), by allowing only certain modifications, and forcing you to run at least one round with your original code. This cuts down on people using their time to rebuild their robots, then just taking stuff to competition.

However, training drivers isn't neccessarily bad. It gives teams a slight edge, but could also be done easily enough with the EDUbot or other remote control vehicles. Also, many teams don't have much time to practice. Generally we only have a week or so between ship and the Granite State Regional.

To be totally 'fair', FIRST would need to do alot. Someone mentioned teams working all year long. This is something that, for the most part, can't be avoided. The only thing FIRST could do would be change the challenge drastically every year, so the teams would need massive redesigns. Beyond that, there isn't much to prevent rolling design work.

The simplest solution (which 'have not' teams don't want to hear), like many have said, FUNDRAISE. When you take the initiative to build team with resources, you can accomplish a lot. Also, teach the students early on what they need to know, so that they can design and build the robot a lot faster, allowing you to train on it, and test code.

[kevinw]

Originally Posted by Mr. Van

The issue here between "haves" and "have-nots" is far, far less about money or CNC machines. It is about mentorship. How many teams have the MENTOR / COACH / TEACHER resources to expand the season from six weeks (and a few weekends) to four months? Or to year-round?

In addition, how many teams have a space where they can build a full field where they can really practice?

One of the major issues that FIRST must address is what kind of time is it going to ask from its volunteer mentors and coaches?

-Mr. Van
Coach, 599

You'd be surprised how many mentors are willing to donate more time. I know I continue to be surprised. That's probably why the CDI, OCRA, and all the other pre-season competitions, as well as the IRI and all the other post-season competitions sprouted up. Students expressed an interest, and mentors were more than willing.

Regarding practice fields, I know of teams that take a classroom, move the tables and chairs, and use the classroom for practice. Or a hallway in the school. Or, if you're really lucky, the gymnasium during a school break when there are no athletic events. It's not perfect, but it saves money, and gets the job done.

[Gui Cavalcanti]

So, I'll reiterate my opinion from an earlier thread to say that, for no other reason, FIRST should not allow practice robots simply because a deadline is a deadline. Real engineering firms have ship dates, and refining and testing should be scheduled in the time allotted to the design. If you want to build an advanced robot, fine, but make sure you have the resources to finish it in the time that you have. Knowing your team/company's limits is a big part of the engineering process, isn't it? When students are in high school, should they be taught that they can finish assignments after deadlines pass, once they know the best way to finish the assignment?

I think something that hasn't really been addressed has been the difference between teams attending early and late competitions. The skill gap between teams who have been practicing for a week and those that are just showing up to the first competition may not be that great. Once a month passes, however, a pit crew could've taken a practice robot apart many times and drivers could have practiced for tens of hours (time they would never receive in a true FIRST competition). By the end of the regional season, the difference in teams would be substantial. In addition, there is a 20-day gap between the last regional and the championship event. Two-robot teams will have a chance to learn what strategies work well with their robot, what they need to work on, and what they need to learn how to fix quickly. Teams that don't have the resources to build two competition robots can only hope they can remember how to run their robot (It happened to us; we only attended the Richmond regional and championships last year, with a full month and a half between events).

[Amanda M]

Originally Posted by Gui Cavalcanti

So, I'll reiterate my opinion from an earlier thread to say that, for no other reason, FIRST should not allow practice robots simply because a deadline is a deadline. Real engineering firms have ship dates, and refining and testing should be scheduled in the time allotted to the design. If you want to build an advanced robot, fine, but make sure you have the resources to finish it in the time that you have. Knowing your team/company's limits is a big part of the engineering process, isn't it? When students are in high school, should they be taught that they can finish assignments after deadlines pass, once they know the best way to finish the assignment?

I would have to disagree. Even though a team makes a practice bot, it doesn't mean they miss the deadline. They still have to ship their robot at the same time everyone else does.

This is the way I see it. FIRST is an organization that governs the creation of these machines. It kind of oversees everything. As long as a team takes a robot to competition, and during that competition that team follows all of the rules, FIRST has no right to tell a team what they do during their build season, outside of what rules are listed in the manual and understood (i.e. a team should make their own robot and not completely steal another or.. maybe buy one.. just for the sake of an example.)
If you look at it from a sports angle: a football team shows up to competition and has an awesome defense or something. They're unstoppable. As long as the team is following all the rules, the NFL has no right to tell them how to practice. Its the same way with FIRST. Any team can practice anyway they wish. Building a practice robot is a very good way to do this.

And I personally do not believe in the "have" and "have-not" team thing. ANY TEAM CAN BECOME A "HAVE" TEAM. All they have to do is venture forth and find the resources. They're there. I come from a small town. I have worked to raise thousands of dollars from my community of 15,000. I personally believe that any team can find money as long as they approach businesses the right way.

And I believe FIRST is a year-round program (in reply to a message at the beginning of this thread). There is so much more to learn fron FIRST than in that 6 weeks. You can do LEGO League, Marketing, comunnity service. That's what FIRST is for. And I think having a practice robot allows students to further learn about engineering, and I think anything that teaches more to students should be in the best interest of FIRST.

[Matt Adams]

Originally Posted by Amanda M

And I think having a practice robot allows students to further learn about engineering, and I think anything that teaches more to students should be in the best interest of FIRST.

A major counter argument in favor to allowing a practice robot is summed up well by Amanda's post above. The argument is something like this:

1. The more students are working with robots, the more excited they get about science and technology.
2. Allowing a practice robot to be built gives a good number of students more time to work more with robots.
3. Hence, a practice robot is good for students, and hence good for FIRST.

The flaw I see with the practice robot is:

1. All students should be allowed to get the same amount of design, building and testing time with their robots for a given robotics season.
2. Many teams do not have the resources to build two robots.
3. Hence, teams should not be allowed to build two robots.

Wouldn't the compromise be:

1. The more students are working with robots, the more excited they get about science and technology.
2. All students should be allowed to get the same amount of design, building and testing time with their robots for a given robotics season.
3. The design, building, and testing time should be longer.

What if the 6 weeks were actually 8 and no practice robot was allowed? What is the 6 was actually 16? This would eliminate the advantage of the practice robot, while still allowing students more time to build and get inspired by FIRST.

This has been hashed out before.. but perhaps this is a different context to the argument about having additional time.

Reply away. Thanks for the good discussion so far!

Matt

[Ellery]

Another Aspect of this discussion would be that teams who travel to more Regionals have more practice and time to improve as well vs. those who just go to 1 or 2 events. Either way the Practice robot would be fine in my eye if you can make it happen with students involved in all aspects especially if you're only able to compete in a limited amount of competitions.

My team has never built a full practice robot in the 14 years we've been involved base on the fact that we tend to concentrate on the process not necessarily the competition. If you haven't noticed we have not won a single robot competition yet but we've always been very competitive. You just have to balance the focus so that your team has a competitive machine without sacrificing the interaction of the students.

IMHO having a practice robot or not doesn't matter, as someone else put it, that's reality! The student should understand how to use their resources efficiently. The message of FIRST has not changed in the 14 years. Just get back to the basics and not worry too much of all these details of who's better off or not. Just concentrate on your kids and let the destiny work its charm.

Ellery

[Gary C]

Originally Posted by Matt Adams

There's been a couple of threads in the past asking which teams build two robots, and then one asking if building two robots is good for the students.


Can't we all agree, that having a 'No Practice Robots Allowed' rule in the future would be very a simple and effective way to reduce the gap between teams with lots of resources and those without?

FIRST often explains itself as a 6 week robot competition, but in all reality, for many 'have' teams, FIRST is a year-round, comprehensive program. The build season is simply split into 6 weeks of building followed by 6 weeks practicing, design tweaking and coming up with 8 hour buildable upgrades for the Thursdays of competition.

The 'have-nots' simply have a 6 weeks of building followed by a few weekends of competing.

Matt

How does FIRST expect to let any drivers have any practice at all? If that rule were existing, I mean. But, yeah, I envy all those teams with the money and the talent and the capabilities to build two robots, but until someone does something, all we can do is watch and learn

-Gary (The Onion) Chaboya

[Winged Wonder]

Originally Posted by CrazyBear

Wow. Great arguments.

blah blah a good points about a few years back with portable machine shops blah blah

more about FIRST and solutions to problems yadda yadda

blah plug to ghettobot 2k4 blah blah

"But in the end, we all have to remember, it is not about the robots."


sidenote on building 2 robots in two weeks yah

nice points.... (sorry; had to make a plug to my older brother... and totally butcher his quote in the process. ^^; sorry bout that Gabe…)

Anyways; everyone had valid arguments which were backed up with a good amount of persuasive detail, yet I still wish to insert my two cents.

From my personal experience and knowledge from past years, team 233, which I wouldn't consider a "have" or a "have-not" team, has never built a second robot identical to the one shipped for competition. Although we do always (at least try to) build a prototype of some sort to test out autonomous programs and how sensors work, we never really have felt the necessity to build a second robot for practicing driving. Every year we build a high caliber robot, yet it’s a one shot deal. We spend tons of time designing the robot before we even start to think of building the real thing because we only have enough resources to build one awesome robot, which, in my eyes, is better than building two mediocre bots, even though every year drivers never get more than two or three days to practice before we ship off 6 weeks of hard work, dedication, and love. We are very blessed to be able to have mentors from NASA (KSC) help us, but we are not exactly that well off financially. We are constantly doing fundraising, ranging from car washes during the summer to gift-wrapping at holiday time and everything in between, yet instead of devoting those funds to lets say, building a second robot, we decide to donate that money to other teams who really need it or to help us pay for expenses related to competing out-of-state.

I suppose in the best interests of your own team and from your experience in FIRST, you can logically deduce what to do with your time and money not only in the six week build period, but throughout the entire year as well. If you decide that building a second robot to allow drivers to have more practice time after your robot is shipped is the best course for you, then by all means, expend your time and resources to fit your expectations best.

From a drivers perspective, a second robot identical (or close enough) to the robot shipped off to practice with in between competitions would be wonderful. It would be great to really get a feel for the robot and really get used to it so that when competition time rolls around, you're not just lost in an abyss of not knowing what’s going on. From a separate perspective though, I feel that in the great scheme of all things, extra driving practice is really not that essential. Hey, that’s why we have Thursdays for, right? To practice, get used to the field, and get a taste of what’s to come. That little taste is enough to fuel my adrenaline and get me pumped up enough so that I can let my instincts take over and I can not worry about messing up or figuring out how to drive the robot, but rather focus on getting the job done, achieving my objectives, and focusing more on cooperating with my fellow driver and developing our strategies.

However, that is not the issue we are discussing. we are discussing whether or not illegalizing the ability to build a second robot if a team so choses would be better for FIRST as a whole or not.

A lot of good points have been made about the parallelisms between FIRST and the real world, and since FIRST is geared toward high school students, almost as a preparation for the real world, it should enforce guidelines like the real world does, such as obeying deadlines and things of that such. But FIRST is also For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, and it should be used as a tool to whet the appetites of teenagers who will become the foundation of tomorrow's society. Personally, in the scheme of all things, I believe whether or not teams should be able to build a practice robot should be left completely up to them, because in the end it is meaningless. Sure, your drivers get more hours of practice, but that doesn’t really mean anything. That’s NOT what FIRST is about. FIRST is NOT just about your robot, how good it is, if you win at a regional or even at nationals. FIRST is about teamwork, gracious professionalism, getting along, learning from your mistakes and learning to get through crunch time alive. FIRST is about family, making new friendships, belonging somewhere, doing something you love, and finding out what your real love is in life so when you're old and wrinkly you can look back at high school and say "This is when I found myself." FIRST is about so much more than just robots. Sure it’s awesome to go to competitions and get carried away in all of the hype, but that’s really not the point. That’s just a brilliant grand scheme that Dean came up with to get us teenagers off our lazy butts and excited about science and technology.