[moderated] pic: The 2006 NiagaraFIRST Triplets!

[Spikey]

Part of me is really excited to see three identical robots, however part of me is not.

I like the idea, its a great way to mentor teams and teach cooperation, but to a point their should be separation. I wonder what people would think if all the BMS teams came to the New Jersey regional with identical robots. (5-6 teams)

Making three identical robots one year is a great idea, making three identical robots 2 years in a row leaves me with questions. It will still be great for these teams to share resources, but why not share the resources to make three different robots? That way the great aspects of collaboration can remain (sharing resources, mentoring others, offering help) while creating an individual robot that each team could be proud of.

Although I personally cannot put myself in the situation that these teams are in. My team was lucky enough to have a machine shop and adequate funds to independently build a robot. Maybe there is a different mindset when teams work together like this, I don't honestly know, all I can say is from my point of view I would like my team to work with others, but not build identical robots.

[Derek Bessette]

Originally Posted by GaryV1188

Do the triplets always compete in the same regionals? Perhaps because of your location Toronto and Waterloo make the most sense; but do you consciously choose to be at the regionals together?

Perhaps in a year or two there will be two sets of two teams, making two sets of "twin" robots. 1114 can collaborate with the new team, 1503 and 1680 can collaborate together. Or whatever works for the situation. In a later year, another team can be added to a partnership to create another "triplet" - which can then divide and spawn off another partnership in a few years.

The triplets are competing in the same regionals. This helps us to save travel costs and reduce the amount of planning required. Also, it is very difficult to have the mentors travel to all different regionals in different weeks.

As for the question of growth within our community. We still feel there is an opportunity to have up to about 6 teams in our area (we also have students from other schools who participate on our teams). I don't envision there will ever be 6 identical robots at a regional. I do however for see a very strong collaborative effort between all teams to make the student's and mentor's experience more rewarding. We'll have to wait and see what happens.

[Mike]

Karthik, you stated that all three bots will eventually get cameras on them. What does your bots do with the camera data? It doesn't look like there are independent turrets on the bot, so do they move the entire bot? I like programming details

Nice bots, I also notice you have a full field set up. What kind of facilities do you have?

[Brandon Martus]

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[Conor Ryan]

Originally Posted by Brandon Martus

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Thanks Brandon, there are some great robots here and now we can get our questions answered.

Wow, collaborative design really pays off, hopefully it'll motivate some people around here to attempt it. I really love the idea, 3 teams are better than one (thats why we have alliances)

• Look at the PVC on the hoppers! Thats pretty cool I like how you guys can both pick balls up off the ground and throw them in. But could you enlighten us how the balls get from inside the robot up into the shooter?
• Are those FP's in dewalt's on the shooters?
• Are specs on the drive train available? By the look of it treads are used on all of them, but I'd like to know the speeds and gearbox specs you used.
• Anyone besides 1680 using the camera?
• When did you take this picture, and how long was it until you had your first robot built and working?
• Does collaborative build take longer than a single team's build?

[Beth Sweet]

When this discussion came up last year, I wrote this thread. I hoped that people would read it and take it to heart. Apparently I was sadly mistaken. Karthik, those robots are gorgeous, your kids should be exceedingly proud of the fantastic job that they did this year.

[techtiger1]

Regardless of what you people think there still very good looking robots. Nice job to Niagara FIRST keeping things simple and elegant with the design. I really them. Love the application of the DeWalt transmissions looks great keep up the good work you three teams. Good luck to each one of the teams. :roll eyes:

- Drew

[Jonathan Norris]

I agree with the two MORT team members in saying that to an outsider the first impression will usually be that how these 3 teams operate can seem unfair. Even though Niagara FIRST builds great robots my personal first impressions was this. Many people I know have had this same impression when first seeing these 3 same robots last year, even my father had the same impression when he learned about these robots. However, throughout this past year I have warmed up to these 3 teams, and have come to admire many aspects about them. They have been able to do to Canada FIRST what none of the larger older Canadian FIRST teams have done. They are able to build robots of the highest quality in the FIRST competition, these three robots I saw at the Greater Toronto Regional last year were by far the best built Canadian robots in that competition, and look to have great robots again. Even though their collaboration will always bring skeptics, it will fuel the rest of the Canadian teams to work harder to build much better robots to truly compete with these three. They have raised the bar for robotics in Canada, and us at 610 have built our strongest robot to date and strive to compete at the same level and defeat these three strong teams. Just as many American teams always strive to beat the great teams such as HOT or Wildstang.

Their accomplishments do a lot for building FIRST, especially in Canada, however the thought of building 3 of the same robots can be seen as hindering creativity and originality in robot design. If these three teams can build 3 great robots with the same original design, I would love to see what 3 original designs they can come up with for three different robots while working together. Am I implying that the 3 teams should not share GM Engineers or share resources to build 3 great robots, in no way. However, I do believe that building 3 exactly the same robots for the same competition, who usually all compete in the same regionals, can be unfair to the rest of the teams in the competition. Because of the robots impeccable quality, competing in a regional with these teams can feel like facing 3 HOT or Wildstang teams, which is a challenge on to itself. I am not trying to say that these three teams should not work together, which should be applauded, but I would wish to see 3 individual robots of the same great quality but each with unique original designs. With the resources to build these 3 same robots, I do not see why they cannot build 3 unique individual robots, while continuing to work together and share resources. Us here at 610 have been sharing our resources for a while, in a much different manner. We have 'sponsored' a team in the past, St. Clemens School, when they worked in the same shop as us for the whole build season, we shared much knowledge and resources. But ended up building very different robots, of different capability due to different levels of experience. I am not trying to imply that our method is better in any way, we did not produce robots of the same quality, but I believe, as do others, that this method of joint work is closer to the method FIRST wished us to follow.

Anyway sorry for ranting, for a while, try not to read into my words too much as they are just a single persons opinion.

[Billfred]

If you can pull off the challenge of coordinating a collaboration (especially a three-way collaboration), I don't care whether your teams wind up in the bottom three spots of the rankings--you've pulled off a task that 99% of teams can't or won't be able to do.

I don't think, however, that you'll have to worry about being at the bottom of the rankings. I see three competing robots, so...

[Andrew Blair]

Wow. I had not heard of collaboration before, and now seeing the concept, I am thouroughly impressed. This is not another Canadian scam to monopolize America ( ), but really an amazing idea. I would love, and also hate working with another team, but I'm very happy that it's worked out for NiagraFIRST. Those are really some awesome machines.

I'm impressed mostly because collaboration is the real world. Recently, during Engineer's Week, we were given the opportunity to tour the GE locomotive plant in nearby Erie. What impressed me most was the setup of the building we were in. All virtual conference rooms. Like 6 of them. It's truly amazing to see engineering teams from all over collaborate to create far better projects. And what is FIRST supposed to be but a bunch of engineering teams?

Maybe I'm cocky, but I am not too afraid to build a machine, given time, to compete with three other teams collaborating. Building a winning robot in FIRST is as much luck as knowhow.

I'm just interested to see the showdown between drive teams, programmers, and pit crews... Good luck this year!

[Holtzman]

In regards to the technical questions about the robots, here are the details....

4 Small Cim drive with a pair of AndyMark Shifters gives us 4.6ftps and 11.8 ftps in low and high gear respectively.
Treads from Brecoflex keep us planted firmly on the carpet.
2 FP's into Dewalts, direct drive to 8 inch Skyways for the launcher.
2 Globes(with 1 stage removed) run the ball lift from the hopper to the basket.
2 window's handles the intake.
And 1 van door runs our highly advanced and secret anti ball jam device.

In regards to Conor's specific questions...

Look at the PVC on the hoppers! Thats pretty cool I like how you guys can both pick balls up off the ground and throw them in. But could you enlighten us how the balls get from inside the robot up into the shooter?

Balls simply roll down the ramp in our hopper into the feed for the lift. Our anti jam device stops jams in the bottle neck to the lift.

Anyone besides 1680 using the camera?

All the robots will eventually get them on. They just didn't get them on in time for the picture.

When did you take this picture, and how long was it until you had your first robot built and working?

Picture was taken the day before ship at our practice facility. We had the practice robot functional in week 3, but several revisions were made to the final competition robots.

Does collaborative build take longer than a single team's build?

The actual build does take longer, but you save time in fabrication.

That being said, could 1114 build a better robot without the collaboration? Yes, but at this time, neither 1503 nor 1680 has the design or the programming resources to design and program their own competitive robots. It is for this reason that they are still a part of the collaboration. Perhaps in the future, when they have established more of their own resources, they will be able to venture off on their own.

[FourPenguins]

I'm not going to judge here (more than I can help) but as much as the collaboration thing is great and is an excellent show of gracious professionalism, I don't entirely understand why you would do this.

Originally Posted by Holtzman

Yes, but at this time, neither 1503 nor 1680 has the design or the programming resources to design and program their own competitive robots. It is for this reason that they are still a part of the collaboration. Perhaps in the future, when they have established more of their own resources, they will be able to venture off on their own.

The only question I have for you on this point (and in this thread really) is why you don't just function as separate team who share machining/mentor resources. The only reason I ask this is because in my experience, the larger the organization (and yours is obviously rather large) the more problems you encounter and the less fun everyone has. (I can tell you that there have been times on MORT that I've thought, "Now if only we had only these 15 kids and these three mentors...")
But the bottom line is that they're great bots and I applaud your engineering and machining talent, all three of you.
//edited 2-28