If you could change one rule - eliminate ship requirement discussion

[sanddrag]

I think FIRST will find other ways to boost software development before they let you keep it until the regional.

For me, I could do a six week build two or three times per year but I don't think I could do much more than six weeks in one "sitting."

[Jack Jones]

Why not use both systems. Keep the FedX for teams like our friends in Brazil, or out in the boonies, or without access to an SUV. They could benefit even more by having their bot shipped to a second event from the savings gained by others opting to BYO.

We in the Oakland County, Michigan area have two regionals that are less than one hour away, and four more within a six hours or less. We could save the rest of the country those extra shipping costs by not waisting resources by shipping ours across the street.

As for giving the well to do teams an additional advantage - I just can't buy that. Not when I keep reading here that 'it's not about the robot' & 'it's not about the competition' - so why do the arguments always boil down to leveling the playing field? - as if we could. We have a 50,000 sq. ft. machine shop with three water cutters, eight CNC, 200 ProE seats, etcetera., and etcetera. They could cut the build time in half and we'd make the show. More time means nothing to us. But cash money sure does.

As to the fear of copycats: IMO, imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. Not only that, it's one heck of a good way to even things out. A good idea is a good idea - and it's often the case that the copy-cat improves on it. What could be wrong with that?

Recent and current events have led me to believe that we cut costs, or else . . ! So, with respect to the parent thread, it's not just one line item we need to examine, but any and all that waste resources.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Jack Jones

Why not use both systems. Keep the FedX for teams like our friends in Brazil, or out in the boonies, or without access to an SUV. They could benefit even more by having their bot shipped to a second event from the savings gained by others opting to BYO.

I think you're missing the issue.

If they have to ship the robot three weeks in advance, they get 3 less weeks to work on the robot than everyone else. It would have to be out of their hands 3 weeks before week 1 of regionals. That's as early as ship currently is. If they chose to go to two regionals, or regionals and nats, the robot would be in transit, or the US from the end of feb. through the end of april.

That's a huge competitive disadvantage.

[Jack Jones]

Originally Posted by Cory

I think you're missing the issue.

...

That's a huge competitive disadvantage.

And I think you are missing my point, which is that it's not about a competitive advantage, it's about whether there's a competition.

[KenWittlief]

In real-world engineering many projects have drop dead dates: trade shows where new systems will be introduced, military contracts with fixed delivery dates, other system designers who need your piece of the project by a certain date or they end up sitting on their hands until you deliver....

No matter how you slice it, we will end up with a drop-dead ship date. Whether its 6 weeks or 10 weeks, and the bot goes in a crate or a rented U-haul trailer, a deadline is a deadline.

And no matter how much time you allow, some people will always say "if I only had two more weeks....."

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Jack Jones

And I think you are missing my point, which is that it's not about a competitive advantage, it's about whether there's a competition.

Implying that a team should be grateful just to be competing just doesn't cut it when they know they're getting half as much time to make their robot as everyone else.

Completely shafting the what, 20-30 non canadian foreign teams for the benefit of the rest of the teams is not something FIRST should even entertain doing.

[Matt Leese]

When I first read this idea, I thought that it was one of the dumbest ideas I'd heard of. After thinking about it, I'm still skeptical, but it doesn't sound quite as bad. As many have said, the major disadvantage is burnout. I think that coupled with that it would be more difficult to recruit mentors for such a long commitment period.

There's a statement made that this will be helping the "rich" at the expense of the "poor." Contrarily, in my opinion, the opposite will happen. This will provide the "poorer" teams with less resources the ability to better compete. Why? Will a team do better because they went from having a good robot with a small amount of practice to a good robot with a large amount of practice or because they went from a barely functional robot to a good robot? I'm betting that going from barely function to good will help teams more. And which teams are most likely to be in the second category? I'd say the "poorer" teams are.

Matt

[Chris Hibner]

Originally Posted by Rich Kressly

3. I too would be a little wary of widening the gap.

Everyone who says this really needs to enlighten me a little bit, because I can't possibly see how eliminating the ship date is going to widen the gap. I can see many instances of narrowing the gap, such as:

Right now you have a lot of the "have" teams already working 15 week schedules building 2nd robots and using them for driving practice, autonomous testing, etc. The "have not" team cannot do this. By eliminating the ship date, now the "have not" teams are on even footing with the "have" teams since now the "have not" teams would have a robot for driver practice, autonomous testing, etc. This would significantly narrow the gap.

"Have not" teams can see how the good teams do it in week 1 and 2 regionals and gain a little design inspiration in time for their regionals or even in time for the championship. Once again, the gap is narrowed.

"Have not" teams could only afford to go to one regional before being trounced at nationlas while the "have" teams go to two or three regionals. Extra regionals mean the "have" teams get to work the bugs out of the robot, gain valuable driving time and match experience, and improve robot function and strategy. Allowing all teams to keep the robots would mean the "have not" teams could work bugs out of the robots, organize scrimmages with teams within reasonable driving distances, and gain valuable driving time and experience with the robot. Once again, the gap is narrowed.

I could list many more reasons how the gap is narrowed, but this post is already long enough.


As far as robot transportation goes, anyone can go to an Enterprise rent-a-car and rent a 15-person van for about $50 per day. Put the robot in the back and you still have room for 8 people. Robot shipping and transportation all in one - and cheaper than shipping a 300 lb crate.

[Billfred]

Just as a thought regarding the extra time thing for some--suppose build season was staggered.

For example, 1293 goes to Palmetto. We'd receive our kit about seven weeks or so before the event, build, and load up the truck and drive it there.

Now say, for example, that 330 wants to come to Palmetto (and for these purposes, only Palmetto), and will have to ship the robot. They would receive their kit three weeks earlier than 1293 does, and be required to ship it out three weeks before the event.

I'm not sure how multiple events would work--one part of me says that teams that can afford multiple regionals can usually afford shipping from event to event, but I know that might not always be the case. Thoughts?

[Jack Jones]

One last word - then I'll say no more about it...

I'm not talking about shafting anybody. I'm talking about the 200 to 300 teams that appear to have gone missing this year, and the ones who have registered, but have no idea what will happen come 9 - December. The ultimate competitive disadvantage is not being able to afford to compete in the first place.

It's been stated here that we can trust GP to keep it fair by putting down the tools on ship day, and promising to not make major overhauls in between competitions. I think that would work. On the other hand, it is my opinion that if we don't cut the cost, then the ones who are lucky enough to find and keep major sponsors will soon find it more and more lonely at the top.

[Sepsis900]

Yeah, I'm not big on the elimination of the ship date myself. Veteran teams can already plow their way through the rookies if they wanted to. Giving them another few weeks would only widen the gap, like everyone said.
However, I'm also not big on paying the cost of shipping 120 pounds of robot and 80 pounds of tools to competition.
My idea is that teams can utilize whatever method they want. If you want to ship the robot by way of UPS, you say so on the registration. If you want to rent a Uhaul truck and move the robot yourself, that can work, too. The only requirement is that the robot has to be at the competition site within, say, 24 hours of the ship date. You'd also have to drop the robot off in its crate and everything, so that it's no different from robots dropped off by UPS (or whatever shipping company you picked).
I think that would eliminate the heavy costs of shipping and the risk of your robot getting damaged along the way by careless people, but keep teams on even ground, since the ship date is virtually the same for every team.

[KenWittlief]

I have to ask about this 'heavy cost of shipping'.

Isnt Fedex offering free shipping to the 1st event this year?

If Fedex is still providing free shipping, I dont think they are going to offer teams $600 in cash instead, if you choose to strap your bot to the roof of someones Geo instead.

[GeorgeTheEng]

In terms of the cost, FIRST used to be more flexible on the shipping issue, at least with a single regional. In past years (as late as 2003 or 2004), the method getting it to the dryage was up to the teams. For local events, our team used the school pickup truck to drive the crate over (yeah you still needed a crate). Depending on distance (the farthest we drove was Baltimore which is about 2 hours for Annapolis dryage), it was not real expensive. Basically lunch and tolls. Now I beleive you have to have a truck with a 48" bed. I forget the exact height, but basically a semi or commercial van that can reach a loading dock.

As for the extra time. I'm mixed. Personally. I take a long weekend immediately after the ship date. I don't want it to continue for an extra few weeks. My team doesn't have the resources (money or mentor-wise) to build a practice robot. So some extra time probably would help.

At the same time I work in an industry where billion dollar contracts can be lost because of missing a deadline. I worked on a large team doing proposal for the government that was due by 5pm on a certain date. At 5:01 our whole year long effort would not even have been accepted. The company actually had the proposal printed twice, sent in two separate trucks an hours or two apart to make sure that if the first truck ran into an issue we'd make the deadline. So yeah, deadlines can be important.

Finally, I've worked with enough engineers to know that they will tweak, and tweak, and tweak a design until you take the item physically out of thier hands. And often those tweaks end up hurting the overall design. Time is not always your friend.

[AmyPrib]

I don't know what my opinion really is on this, but a few thoughts:

I think there needs to be an across the board "tools down" date. Whether that remains an actual ship date, or becomes honor code, I don't know.

Regardless if FedEx pays for the first regional shipment, many many teams (majority?) go to a second regional (some a third). The argument could be "they don't have to", which is true, but I would want to compete as much as possible for all the hard work put in. Then there's the shipping to Championships. I am not sure we can rely on FedEx to give free shipping forever, so perhaps at some point the cost will increase due to this.

I also disagree that the gap would be widened. I just don't think it would benefit the "have's" as much as it would the "have-not's". I do not want to see the build season go on too long (for burn-out, time committment reasons), but if there's an honor code "tools down" it should be respected and followed. This isn't a place for cheaters, but I suppose there will always be some. (I don't know any, but just assuming realistically)

It's a lot about cost. Let's say there's a regional 40miles away from me. I have to ship my robot to some place that is 200mi away from me, just so that it can be shipped back close to home. Seems silly doesn't it. Seems like a waste of money. It happens. Our robot has been able to fit an SUV the last few years. Teams without a trailer or SUV, I am not sure what the solution is, but you could spend a couple grand on a trailer that can be used for the next 20yrs, or you could pay $600 twice a year for the next 20yrs. I don't know exact numbers, but it's all relative.

If we can eliminate the need for most crates and shipping, it could reduce the cost and time for unloading and reloading at the event (for teams and FIRST).

As far as having software and autonomous flourish by having more time with it, I'd like to see these systems reused for a couple years so we could master it. Or, provide more information about these systems earlier than kick-off so that teams can try it out. We wouldn't know the game, but we could know "this camera has to find the color green" and there could be some development time in the Fall.

On the note of having veteran teams compete in earlier regionals and rookies in later.... It wouldn't much matter if there's a honor code in place. But, I am not a fan of this idea. Personally I like to compete against a diverse group of teams. I want the competition to be strong, but there are a lot of strong, innovative rookies out there too. I don't want to see all vets vs vets in the first weeks and all rookies vs rookies in later weeks. Some might like that, some might not. Now, this is no mandatory rule, and there would be conflicts of when teams can compete, but in general, if this were to happen, I wouldn't be a fan.

So, like I said, I'm not sure what my opinion is. There will always be pros and cons no matter what we do. There will always be those with and without. What is more beneficial in the long run? I don't think we can just open it up and say "eliminate the ship date and work as long as you like", but some will say "you can't rely on an honor code". I say, why not? In this type of organization, where GP is the key, why would there be people that want to break the honor system? (kinda retorical question but perfectly legit)

I would essentially like to see the time restrictions (for many reasons stated in this thread) stay somewhat in place, but find a way to eliminate "unnecessary" costs. There will be teams that have those costs no matter what, but unfortunately we will never make everyone happy. But, even if time restrictions were opened up a little, perhaps instead of assuming the veteran teams will continue to dominate the rookies, maybe it will give the vets more time to HELP the rookies.

[YLDNWLY]

Interesting discussion.

One of the aspects of the FIRST program that I appreciate and enthusiastically talk about when promoting the program is the fact that the robot must be designed, built, tested and shipped in just six weeks. My feeling is that we would be losing an important part of what FIRST is about by eliminating the ship date. Here are some other reasons:
1) In the real world, there are deadlines that cannot be moved. In my biz, the green flag is going to fly whether you are ready or not. We are doing what we can to help the students prepare for the world after school and this world revolves around immovable deadlines.
2) Many projects take up all available time given to them without an increase in the efficiency or efficacy of the end product. Extending the time will not magically increase the quality of the robots.
3) The most valuable commodity that any of us has, and it is all the same everywhere, is time. It is the only way to allow some teams to compete with others. The have and have not discussion usually revolves around money, or that which money can buy. If the time is increased, the disparity in financial status between teams will be much more pronounced since the potential leveling influence of the firm, universal deadline will be removed.
4) Burnout! Without a doubt, if the deadline were removed, this would become a larger factor. Right now, it is far easier to recruit mentors and get the blessings of parents since the major time commitment is limited.

Bill Woolley
Team 1079

PS: Be sure to get the November issue of SERVO magazine.