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  #16   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 19-10-2005, 00:07
sanddrag sanddrag is offline
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Re: Should teams be pushed to make higher quality robots?

I used to approach robot building with the "just cut it here" or "drill it oversize so it'll fit right" attitude but no more.

I have been enlightened by the teams who create these professional grade masterpieces and now I'm on a quest to do the same, and hopefully have a few others join me.

I don't look down upon the "popular" teams with all their fancy anodizing and whatnot. Heck no. I look up to them and think "hey, that can be MY robot. I CAN DO THIS!" All it takes is a little determination.
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Unread 19-10-2005, 00:12
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Re: Should teams be pushed to make higher quality robots?

I hope all further comments are on topic. There's at least one conversation in here that DEFINITELY should be in PM, not here.

>>There's been a couple posts between the last one I read and me writing this...>>

Anyway - I think every team should strive to better themselves every year, regardless how big or small those steps are. You can't change them, nor can you assume what they do or don't care about, but you can help them if they accept it. Inspiration comes in many forms (this debate has been done before), that's something I'm sure about.
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Last edited by AmyPrib : 19-10-2005 at 00:18.
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Unread 19-10-2005, 00:18
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Re: Should teams be pushed to make higher quality robots?

Sanddrag -

If you feel it's your prerogative to offer advice to others, then I'd love to hear your explanation on why you also feel justified in telling Cory he does not have the right to do the same. We are all equal, are we not?

If you think people aren't going to want to hear or read your ideas, wouldn't you refrain from posting them out of respect for others? I mean, this is man of the best-of-the-best theory here.. so why post something that isn't the 'best'? And of course, it must not be, if you feel others wouldn't be interested in its content.

Apparently, you missed the fact that you criticized someone for doing the exact thing that you had just done. Most people consider hypocrisy an undesirable trait.

I never said anything about experience meaning anything, in this situation or another. I merely stated that that was the only difference I saw - meaning your justification for criticizing him could not have been that you have far more experience or anything of the sort. If I felt that one year of experience was that big of a deal, I would not consider myself worthy of stating my opinions in this thread, as I'm still a highschool student in my third year with a lot to learn.
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Unread 19-10-2005, 00:46
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Re: Should teams be pushed to make higher quality robots?

plz someone move this to moderated discussion b4 it spirals outta control....
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Unread 19-10-2005, 01:15
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Re: Should teams be pushed to make higher quality robots?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stephen Kowski
plz someone move this to moderated discussion b4 it spirals outta control....
It's not going 'out of control.' No worries. People have made polite suggestions to me about using GP and such, and I've taken into consideration that I did not express my points very diplomatically, though I still believe them valid. I have no intention of turning this into a flame war. There has been no offense taken by me and hopefully none by anyone else despite my rather aggressive previous posts. I apologize if there has been.
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Unread 19-10-2005, 01:23
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Re: Should teams be pushed to make higher quality robots?

I'm going to say that I partially agree with Sanddrag on this whole thing. By that, I mean that I think it would be a good thing, but I don't think that it can be implemented/enforced.

I would love to see more professional looking robots. I would especially like to see it on my own team. 1351 has been trying to take measures to outlaw "ghetto fab" (that's what everyone calls it, but I don't remember what our official documents call it). We've had problems with people just trying to cobble things together with a near complete disregard for quality. When people look at the robot in this condition, it makes the team look bad.

As I said, my team has been trying to make rules to improve quality. One of the proposed rules was to force everything to be CADed. Another (thus far, unwritten rule) is to make sure that nobody uses tools if they have not been properly trained to do so. Aside from safety, it also ensures that they are using the tools properly to do high quality work.

While these specific rules probably couldn't be instated FIRST-wide, I don't think it would be a good idea to create many quality control rules. Many such rules would depend on a team's resources. Have you ever tried to make a straight, clean cut with a hack saw? It's pretty hard. It's not practical for my team to have everything done at the machine shop. We make drawings and send them out. For a 6 week build period, this process has a relatively long turn around time. If parts come back and need to be modified, it's not practical to send out the new design. It's also a waste of time to send out for small brackets that can be cut with a saw or a dremel. These parts obviously won't look as nice.

There is also an issue of skill level. We are a student-run team. Mentors are only supposed to step in when asked to help or to avoid serious problems (bodily harm, damage to equipment, decisions that will lead to total failure...). When unsolicited, small suggestions or hints are alright, however. "Do you really need that collar?" is alright, but "Maybe you should use this bushing here and move the collar there, then add a spacer here" is pushing it. There are some students that don't seem to like help. They get a little perturbed when suggestions are given to them. Sometimes, they'll ignore the information even though they know it'll help them. They tend to get the job done, but it's usually not as good as it could have been.

Then, there's also people that just don't learn. I'm sure you know kids that will keep taking the candy no matter how many times you smack them. I've lost count of the number of times that things have been or were going to be damaged because people don't use limit switches. I'm starting to get tired of correcting them all the time, but not doing so is expensive (in more ways than one). Granted, most of them are newbies, but they usually have veterans working with them that should know better. Some seem to have taken the "measure once, cut twice" philosophy. However, this usually becomes measure once, cut twice, measure again, then cut a few more times. I've seen the same types of problems come up over and over again, but people just don't seem to learn from them.

Our workmanship seems to have a trend. As time approaches the end of the deadline, quality approaches zero. It's not that people aren't trying, it's just that quality has to be sacrificed to work faster. When 10 people are trying to get on the robot at once, you have to get in and out as fast as possible. Having a shoddy robot that might be cleaned up later is better than having a nice looking robot that's still being worked on in the field before your 4th match. Yes, the poor quality makes us look bad, but unless it's a MOPE (Monstrosity Of Poor Engineering), we shouldn't sacrifice all prior work on the project because of the last few days.

To sum all this up, I agree that professional quality work would be great. However, it might not be practical for everyone. There can't be a FIRST-wide quality standard. Possibly guidelines, but not much more than that. I feel, however, that each individual team should set their own quality standards. These standards, of course, will vary from team to team. If you're working with a $5 cordless drill, a hack saw, and someone's foot for a vice, you obviously won't have the same standards as the team with the in-house CNC, water jet, and welders. If you're the team with the $5 drill, it's measure twice, cut once; not the other way around. If you've got a CNC, you probably don't want people trying to eyeball things then making a cut with a hack saw. As long as you're doing the best with what you have, you're doing just fine.
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Unread 19-10-2005, 06:20
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Re: Should teams be pushed to make higher quality robots?

Quote:
I'd say the rule about actually touching the loading zone triangle was pointless. It made so many nice robots look very cheap with zip ties and junk hanging off the front.
I agree with sanddrag.


We did not know that we would have and issue until our first competition in New Hampshire when we started getting penalties that our base prevented the refs from seeing that our robot was touching the triangles, I mean we were over top of the things and our omni wheels were on the corners of the triangles, the zip ties were just a quick fix to prevent penalties to a decent robot. I mean in six weeks not all teams can find solutions to every single rule or even consider what the refs will call on the feild. But ever since the fix with the zip ties our team hasn't gotten a penalty, so our quick fix worked, now if we would have known that would have been an issue we would have done something about it while building the robot.

I don't know maybe my team isn't to the level yet in nit picking and completly finding every single rule that in competition will affect our robot based on ref calls. In the build season we didn't think that our robot would have the any penalty issues, but I guess we were wrong.


Last edited by Bcahn836 : 19-10-2005 at 06:22.
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Unread 19-10-2005, 07:38
JohnBoucher JohnBoucher is offline
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Re: Should teams be pushed to make higher quality robots?

What an interesting and timely subject.

Team 237 hosted a rookie team (1784 Litchfield HS) at last nights meeting. They are a startup with very limited exposure to this wonderful process called FIRST. They joined based on somebody taking their ears off about FRC and attending UTC last year. Their mentors are all new to this process. They are worried about being able to pull this off.

We had a wide-ranging conversation about how to build, what tools you really need, how to fund raise, what comes in the KOP and what their expectations should be for their rookie year. It was a great conversation. You can learn a lot by talking to rookies.

What do we all expect to get out of this? It's about the process. It's about compressing life into 6 weeks. It's about doing. It's about learning to fail. It's about gracious professionalism. It's about releasing the limitations that we all put on ourselves. It's about thinking outside of the box. It's about growing.

Perhaps we all need to talk to rookies, they are the ones that see this for what it's about.


Also For those that did not read all of Waynes post this is what you missed
Quote:
It doesn't really matter about the robot. It is the team that they build that is the important accompliishment...
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Unread 19-10-2005, 12:59
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Re: Should teams be pushed to make higher quality robots?

Although I agree that robot's should look professional, I would like to point out that there are teams out there without the means to make a more professional robot. Who's to blame? Perhaps "we don't try hard enough" but I feel that something like this cannot be said without viewing what any particular team goes through.

It is true, as someone brought up previously, that there are students on teams that do not "care." Sometimes, I get frustrated at my own team because I get the impression that the effort is evanescent. But when I look at each individual student, I realize that it's not always their fault. It's no "one" person's fault. Building a team is hard work. It's harder than doing a fundraising activity, it's harder than building a robot, it's harder than finding the time and money to sustain the team. Building a team calls for effort from everyone's side and leadership from a dedicated few as well. I think building a "real" team is more important than striving for a higher quality robot.
In fact, if a "real" team is formed, slowly, the rest of the problems will be solved (of course the teams will still struggle).

This, of course, is my opinion. I had no intention of insulting anyone else's opinion stated here.
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Unread 19-10-2005, 13:27
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Re: Should teams be pushed to make higher quality robots?

As a member of a team which had serious cash flow problems,

We have had any number of robots which looked a lot like overgrown erector sets, and we had one robot which looked (and functioned) like a real robot. Did we spend more on it? Only a little. Our actual real costs of materials were about $1200 for the robot chasis, which I contend that any team should be able to afford. The way we made it functionally excellent was by spending time, time and more time. How much? Well 3-4 of use lived at our machine shop for 3.5 weeks. We also made it excellent by refusing the "good enough" mentality. Any piece which earned the appelation "good enough" was immediatly thrown away. Our robot was neither anodized nor powder coated, but it ran perfectly. Through two complete regionals and all of the elimination matches (through the finals at 2 regionals) we never had a single mechanical problem* because we put time and thought into our design.

The other thing I see is teams getting into ruts. A decent basic design comes along and then everyone copies it. We (and the other really good robots) threw a lot of the "established design" out of the window for the really good designs. Some of you may recall heated discussion here a little less than a year ago debating that our robot would never even move. But we actually tried something, as opposed to just going with what other people do.

* I should note that our treads wore out, but they were planned as replacable, limited use parts
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Unread 19-10-2005, 16:24
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Re: Should teams be pushed to make higher quality robots?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cory
If they don't care, they either a) shouldn't be in the program,
I hear this argument all the time from many of the 'extreme-FIRSTers'
I don't believe sandrag means they don't care at all, they just don't have the same passion many do that spend alot of time on this forum. I believe everyone in the program has some excitement for it, whether it be large or small. And even if there excitment is little, I believe this to be no reason to say they SHOULDN'T be in the program. Many aren't in the program for the pursuit/interest in science/engineering but to be with friends and like minded company - I think some of us forget this often. FIRST is fun, even if you don't like robots.
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Unread 19-10-2005, 16:29
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Re: Should teams be pushed to make higher quality robots?

I would like to see teams be pushed to make a more quality FIRST program (more school involvement, community involvement, help to strengthen the local and national FIRST scene and such) then I would "just building a quality robot". FIRST can only become stronger when teams strive to lift up the program and not just build the robot and leave it at that.
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Unread 19-10-2005, 17:29
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Re: Should teams be pushed to make higher quality robots?

My experience -- all 7 years of it, if you can imagine -- has been that teams that produce robots that have a high polish in design, fabrication and function have a better understanding of process than do teams that haphazardly and aimlessly assemble a robot. Both deserve to be proud of their efforts and, undoubtedly, both have learned something new that they did not know yesterday, last season, or last year -- but they're proud of different accomplishments. In other words, some teams are proud of pulling through at the eleventh hour, and others are proud for not having to stay awake for three or four days in order to meet their goal. Ultimately, there is no absolute arbiter to determine which accomplishment is better than another.

Where I'm concerned, process trumps ingenuity. A successful process that can provide a solution that is reliable, safe, cost-effective and on-time is far superior to a solution that prioritizes unorthodoxy and originality -- especially at the particular expense of reliability and safety. Students with a better understanding of process will be better equipped to handling projects of increased scale. Burning the candle at both ends to finish a project may be possible when you're surrounded by 30 students in a classroom, but it becomes less feasible when you're working beside 500 professionals at a company, each of whom have families and homes they must attend to.

Is process inspirational? Well, no. It's boring, actually. Process is built around meetings and approvals and budgeting and performance-review. It slows things down because it requires that we first explain and justify our intended course of action to others. Whether the others understand that action is almost inconsequential, as much of the value comes from simply slowing down and reexamining the decisions we make and their impact. I work fast alone; I work better in a group. Working with a group and explaining to them everything I do forces me to be more thoughtful and honest about my ideas. This benefits everyone and, where FIRST is concerned, usually results in robots that work. Is there anyone here who believes that fielding a robot that functions as designed and reliably so is not inspirational? It's certainly more enjoyable than spending six weeks on an ingenious gizmo that, come competition, doesn't work as advertised -- no matter how clever it looked on paper.
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Unread 19-10-2005, 17:44
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Re: Should teams be pushed to make higher quality robots?

It is not always possible for teams to create a robot that is "visually pleasing", but isn't that really apart of the challenge? It is difficult enough to finish the robot on time and some teams (including my own) have made adjustments that make the robots less professional looking. You know what though, I am glad we made those changes because it allowed for us to get a great robot functioning and competing despite its less lack of beauty. FIRST, however, does recognize a team's ability to make the robot neat, organized and more "professional" by awarding the Motorola Quality Award.


As for teams not working hard enough, I graciously disagree with that. Especially now, when companies are not able to contribute as much as they use to, it is unfair to point fingers and claim that due to lack of funding or resources a team has not been working hard enough. The challenge was not meant to be easy, if it was meant to be easy it wouldn't be much fun.

I really don't like seeing fights on CD, so lets please lets not continue this.
In Sanddrag's defense, I don't think he meant anything disrespectful by his opinion nor do I believe that he wanted to start a fight. It is glorious year 9 for me in FIRST and I admit that I still have a lot to learn about myself, my team and GP. I <3 FIRST!

GO FIRST!!!
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Unread 19-10-2005, 19:44
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Re: Should teams be pushed to make higher quality robots?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Collmandoman
I hear this argument all the time from many of the 'extreme-FIRSTers'
I don't believe sandrag means they don't care at all, they just don't have the same passion many do that spend alot of time on this forum. I believe everyone in the program has some excitement for it, whether it be large or small. And even if there excitment is little, I believe this to be no reason to say they SHOULDN'T be in the program. Many aren't in the program for the pursuit/interest in science/engineering but to be with friends and like minded company - I think some of us forget this often. FIRST is fun, even if you don't like robots.
I'm not talking about people who aren't hardcore FIRSTers.

Im talking about the people who show up only to eat your food and screw around (yeah, you all know what I'm talking about. Every team has this happen )

If they add absolutely nothing of value to the team, they should be asked to leave, or to start reforming their ways.

Maybe mechanicalbrain was referring to the type of people you were talking about though, and I misunderstood him.
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