[moderated] pic: The 2006 NiagaraFIRST Triplets!

[Matt Adams]

Karthik:

I know that we haven't talked much on these forums, and I'm not nearly as regular of a poster as I once was, so to be clear the "tone" of the post that follows, it's meant to moderately inquisitive, challenging, but first and foremost respectful. I think I sit with a small(er) but sizeable group of people that see the picture of 3 identical robots and it sort of makes them squirm in their chair for reasons the can't define. Many don't see this as 'good' or 'bad' but just different, and they're still trying to make out their thoughts. Anyway, here are some questions.

Originally Posted by Karthik

Trust me, we'd be better off build a single bot.

I think it's that sentance that has me confused and what prompted me to post. Why would you be better off? What are some of the drawbacks you had to weigh when deciding to build 3 of the same robot?

Originally Posted by Karthik

We simply don't have the resources, sponsors and mentors to support 3 seperate FRC teams in our area.

I think that this, if I may speak for others, is where a lot aforementioned squirming comes from. Anyone who goes to a FRC regional has seen the full spectrum of teams working with a wide variety of machining capabilities, mentor assistance and funding. The 3 NiagaraFIRST machines are obviously beautiful - they appear well designed and manufactured. I think that some believe these three teams, with a third of the resources, could create a less beautiful, albeit functioning, robot. I don't know enough about your teams to make a guess, but since some teams function without engineering help and hardly any machining capabilities, I'm sure these three teams could get SOMETHING moving around... but see my next thoughts below.

Originally Posted by Karthik

You see, the reason we collaborate is not to build a better robot.

I don't think this is true, but at the same time, I don't think you're trying to be deceptive - it's likely a miscommunication. If I can take an educated guess about part the motivation to collaborate, it's because the leaders of these organizations probably had a discussion and realized that if these three teams were functioning independently, they would admittedly have robots, but to put it nicely, very sickly looking, bare bones robots. I think that 'better' in the way you spoke before and having 'resources, sponsors and mentors' are very much related. You collaborated to have better robots - but not to create an all dominating force with an unfair advantage. Am I wrong?

My personal opinion is under-mentored teams that build poor-performing, unreliable robots are, generally (exceptions exist), not particularly inspiring. I think there are many who understand this point (but may not agree it).

And of course, I think we can all acknowledge that under-inspired teams are fundamentally something we want to improve!

I would like to hear more of NiagaraFIRST's thoughts on these sort of topics, if you'd be willing, to maybe further help the FIRST community understand a bit more about the process your teams had to go through when thinking about collaborating for another year.

Thanks, and good luck this year!

Matt

[Karthik]

Hey Matt,

Thanks for logical questions. I'll be happy to try and address them for you.

Originally Posted by Matt Adams

I think it's that sentance that has me confused and what prompted me to post. Why would you be better off? What are some of the drawbacks you had to weigh when deciding to build 3 of the same robot?

Without going into all the inner workings and politics of our Teams, let me best try and explain this. If we were to pool our best engineers and students onto one team, and have them design and build one robot, we could probably build a more competitive robot. Many times functionality is sacrificed, because it would take too long to implement the change on all three robots. Also, our manufacturing time is greatly increased.

Originally Posted by Matt Adams

You collaborated to have better robots - but not to create an all dominating force with an unfair advantage. Am I wrong?

No, you've sort of got it right. If we had one team, we would have a robot that was better than these three. But, if we existed as three separate teams, chance are our triplets would be better than the non-collaborated robots.

Originally Posted by Matt Adams

My personal opinion is under-mentored teams that build poor-performing, unreliable robots are, generally (exceptions exist), not particularly inspiring. I think there are many who understand this point (but may not agree it).

Exactly. This is one of the main reasons for the collaboration. We too feel that a high functioning robot is more inspiring than a poor-performing one. This collaboration was initially designed to setup teams with limited resources for more success. While the collaboration occurs, the newer teams are given valuable time to align themselves with more resources, to allow for a transition into Independence. This collaboration is not a permanent solution, merely a model to lead new teams toward sustainable success.

It's it my firm belief that not only does FIRST need to grow to accomplish it's mission of a culture change, but it needs to establish strong sustainable growth. This is the driving motivation behind the collaboration.

[Jonathan Norris]

I am interested in knowing how fast your ball lift mechanism is into the shooter. You said that you took 1 stage out of the globe's gearbox, how much faster does that make it?

[Holtzman]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Norris

I am interested in knowing how fast your ball lift mechanism is into the shooter. You said that you took 1 stage out of the globe's gearbox, how much faster does that make it?

We took a 5:1 stage out of the Globe Planetary. With the conveyor system were using that translates to about 21 inches a second, or about 3 balls a second.

[CatchRothy22]

Alright, i stopped reading the posts after about page 3 because they're just all the same points arguing against me.

I jumped to conclusions, a bit too quickly. Sorry about that. When i saw that picture i just thought a company sponsored 3 teams, built them, and just sent them out. Made a false assumption, made an $@#$@#$@# out of myself, oops. Apologies to the teams and NiagraFIRST. And to MORT for making us look like morons.

[Rich Kressly]

Originally Posted by CatchRothy22

Alright, i stopped reading the posts after about page 3 because they're just all the same points arguing against me.

I jumped to conclusions, a bit too quickly. Sorry about that. When i saw that picture i just thought a company sponsored 3 teams, built them, and just sent them out. Made a false assumption, made an $@#$@#$@# out of myself, oops. Apologies to the teams and NiagraFIRST. And to MORT for making us look like morons.

Thank you PJ, it honestly takes guts to step up and admit a mistake, especially one that is inflammatory. I send along my appreciation to you and to Team 11 for helping to get things back on track here. Please know, we aren't "arguing against you" as this is not a personal issue. It's about approprite public conduct and always keeping the big FIRST picture in mind. I'll most likely talk more about that in another thread, but as for the insight into the Niagara collaboration and detailed robot information, thank you all for helping us to learn!

[Andy Grady]

I agree...these are three very excelent robots, beautifually engineered and constructed, and for that, the Niagra FIRST teams should be proud.

I also go back to my point, I don't care if students, engineers, my aging grandmother, or a pack of monkeys builds the robot...as long as at least one student walks away inspired then the goal of FIRST has been reached.

With that said...I pose this question...

At what point does collaboration get out of control?

From a viewers standpoint, as a fan of the game, seeing three of the same robot can be quite boring. Match after match I can find it easy to become overly saturated with the clones. One thing over the years I have grown to love, is seeing how teams small and large handle the problems differently. Whether you have lots or little money, more or less engineers, mentor or student built...that uniqueness is something that has been special. I do not deny that making triplet bots has its own unique facet...but as a fan of the game, I'd just rather not see it.

Strategically, its has not been proven that colaboration actually helps teams succeed. Lets face it...the teams that have collaborated up to this point are proven teams...even if they were building on their own, they would probably do just as well. Also from a strategic standpoint...if you build three of the same robot, thats 2 less robots I have to scout for.

There are alot of arguements for or against collaboration...fact of the matter is, it is here to stay (at least for the time being), so as long as its legal, and NiagraFIRST feels that it is beneficial to the kids involved...more power to ya and good luck at the competition.

-Andy Grady

[Not2B]

Part 1 - Those look cool! It's similar to our design, just much more SMOOTH! Can't wait to see one/two/three - (not sure how many will be where I'll be.)

Part 2 - So... they pick a different engineering challange from most of us. Most teams have the challange of designing a robot alone... sealed off from the rest of the FIRST world. But we only have to make one bracket. One hopper. So we try some stuff out, make a prototype, get one working. Yeah for us. THEY have to get each part documented with enough info to make several copies. That's an engineering lesson on it's own. It's not bad/good - it's different. Just like Battlebots IQ - which is more of a durablity and materials selection type of engineering activity. In other words, a big SO WHAT!

Part 3 - I love having the triplets in FIRST! It's something different. Something we all know about. We all know 71 kicks butt. We all know that we have a team named for a south part snack food. And we have those wacky triplets, like the Del Rubio Triplets - but in robot form. It's just great.

Part 4 - Once upon a time I would have been upset about this - I was upset about engineer built machines, about teams building practice robots, blah blah blah... but after about 2-3 years, I started to come around. And after 5 years, I've come to realize the errors of my ways. It doesn't matter. Did YOUR team inspire students? Did YOUR actions help someone out? Don't feel too bad, everyone will get it in their own way and in their own time.

[Wetzel]

Matt and Andy, I share some of your feelings. It is different and I'm not quite sure how I feel about it yet. When I first saw the picture I was amazed. Holy cow 4 of the same pretty robots!
Then I thought about it some and realized that three teams worked together to develop and construct the same idea. Amazed again at the level of coordination to get that many high school students and mentors to work together to down select to the same idea and then build it.
But something just felt odd. I dunno, but I think it is just change takes a bit to get used to but I think I like it.

C’est la vie.

Wetzel
PS: This makes me want even more to do a build season with a 'powerhouse' team to steal their secretes.

[Derek Bessette]

First off , I would like to thank everyone for their praise, comments, suggestions and questions. I think our three team collaboration is somewhat unique in the FIRST community. I welcome all constructive criticism and thank those who have not made assumptions and attacked the way we do things here at NiagaraFIRST.org.

I'm actually quite happy this thread has become a moderated debate over collaboration. This type of conversation is very healthy for the FIRST community and very helpful to us at NiagaraFIRST.org. We are always looking for ways to make the experience for our student's better.

I think Karthik has answered most of the questions regarding how we manage our teams. I'm just going to add a few comments regarding the advantages and disadvantages of our collaboration.

I'm the lead GM mentor for team 1114. I have been involved with this team from the beginning. As Karthik said, as a single team I think we would be stronger than as a triplet. As a team we have been able to tap into a lot of resources in the Niagara area to get a lot of our metal and some parts donated as well as getting some of our harder machining done. These advantages are now passed on to three teams instead of one. Westlane and Fort Erie are starting to find their own resources which may help them break away from the collaboration eventually.

One advantage of a collaboration is with these resources. When Westlane finds someone to sponsor the decals for their robot, they get decals for all of the robot. When Fort Erie finds someone to get spare batteries donated, we all get free batteries. This same advantage is present with machining and fabricating. Westlane has a CNC lathe, Simcoe does not. Simcoe bought a CNC mill this year to match the one Westlane has had for some time. The Westlane Lead teacher mentor was able to come to Simcoe to help our expert grade 9 CNC mill programmer/operator. Each school is better at making some things compared to others. We use these strengths to help all of our teams succeed.

We also gain an advantage by learning from each others mistakes and improvements. We can pass lessons learned to each of the teams. Of course on the same note, when a design doesn't work out we usually end up with a lot of useless parts that took a long time to make. I challenge someone to print off our first teaser pic and try to find all of those parts on any of the robots. At least 75% of that stuff is now obsolete.

One of the biggest disadvantages is keeping the team organized and on track. We have to be very careful to document all of our drawings correctly and keep everyone up to date on changes. Although this problem hurts us as a team it is a very good learning experience for the kids. They learn how important it is to have good drawings and to communicate any changes.

Another disadvantage is the politics. There are a lot more people on three teams compared to on one. There are more personalities to deal with and a lot of different opinions on what the robot would look like and do. The brainstorming session at the start of the season helps with this a lot. We are able to get together and vote on the best ideas and always come up with a robot that incorporates ideas from all teams.

Also we won a lot more technical award last year than we had in the past. I believe this has to do with the fact that we had 3 identical robots. How do you pick which one to give it to?

By far the biggest advantage is that we can get to more students with less money and people. We can build three inspirational robots with fewer mentors and less money. A lot of people ask: Why not merge into one team with one robot? or Why not build 3 lesser quality robots?

For the first question I would answer: "Because, there is nothing more inspiring than competing with a robot that you built." Each school can get more involved with their own robot at competition because we are dealing with three smaller groups. I would find it very difficult to find productive and inspiring things to do for 80 kids with only one robot.

For the second robot I would say: "Competitive robots are inspirational robots." We could build three different robots. But they would all be less competitive and well engineered. I think our students are plenty inspired when the see what they've built, even though there are two more just like it.

Andy - Great points! I agree that having triplets in a regional might make it somewhat less interesting to watch. However, I will point out that it is definitely not less interesting for the kids that get to play the game with their own competitive robot. Each team has tremendous pride in their robot and they fight very hard, especially when they are against one of the other triplets. If I thought we had the time and resources to be able to put out three quality robots then we could have the best of both worlds. At some point I hope we can get there.

You also asked when we thought it gets out of control. I think we are at the limit now. I would find it very difficult to go to four teams with identical robots. We are getting another school in the area started with some of our kit materials that we haven't used over the years. They are going to build a robot using this years rules for the off-season competition in Wonderland. This will give them a chance to learn the heartaches of FIRST at a much more relaxed pace. They will have a lot of the advantages of being in NiagaraFIRST without having the same robot. We'll see how it works out.

I want to again thank everyone for turning this thread around. I understand how teams might be confused, disappointed, and even upset at the way we do things. I hope everyone can stay constructive in their criticism.

One thing you'll notice about our team. We are always improving. Whether it's the robot or the way we manage our team. Thanks to those out there who are trying to help us get better.

If anyone has any more question regarding our collaboration please feel free to ask. Try and be specific or you might end up with another novel like this one!


I almost forgot the biggest advantage of all!

Three times as many people get to hear me and Karthik sing at 2 am!

Karthik - Did you ever know that your my hero? You are the wind beneath my wings!

[KVermilion]

Guys... why are you arguing?

Attack of the Clones was undisputably the worst Star Wars movie ever.

Enough said.

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by Derek Bessette

You also asked when we thought it gets out of control. I think we are at the limit now. I would find it very difficult to go to four teams with identical robots. We are getting another school in the area started with some of our kit materials that we haven't used over the years. They are going to build a robot using this years rules for the off-season competition in Wonderland. This will give them a chance to learn the heartaches of FIRST at a much more relaxed pace. They will have a lot of the advantages of being in NiagaraFIRST without having the same robot. We'll see how it works out.

I think this is the most important aspect of the partnership. That it is NOT cast in concrete for all time, but that it is part of an evolution. And that it is not envisioned as uber-alliance. That is my biggest concern with alliances - that they grow to encompass too many teams. We don't want to see alliances with 10 or more teams dominating a regional.

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.

1188 came into existance by being mentored by 65 a few years ago. Then we struck off on our own as rookies (the same year 1114 were rookies). We didn't organize as two teams during the initial mentorship, because there weren't enough students associated with what became 1188 to make it work. Or because no one thought of doing it.

Last year 1188 mentored a student from another HS in the area - it was going to be more, but only he was interested enough to join. This year he moved to another school that has a team, so there was no one left from his original school left to participate. There is another school in our area that I would love to become involved in FIRST. I have broadly thought out a possible long-term relationship, involving both FIRST and the local OCCRA competition in the Fall - it's still so nebulous that I haven't even discussed it with our main mentor. Perhaps dual-designed FIRST robots would be an option if that partnership comes to pass. This year wasn't the year to pursue it, as we have so much on our plate with our association with South Africa.

I was initially against this concept, but can see how it can work in the right circumstances. If it serves to get more students involved in FIRST than would otherwise be possible, it is a good thing.

[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?