Collaborations

[Drew]

Originally Posted by thoughtful

First of all this topic has been discussed all around CD.

I dont know about many cloned teams, but i know of the Triplets from Niagara FIRST. They collaborate on they collaborate on everything but the competition(meaning once they are on the field they will all play their hearts out). 1114 in 2005 took two other teams under their wing in order to promote FIRST in a region where they were the lone team. On the field they are a very GP team and matches between triplets are always fun. I dont see anything wrong with this. Although they might gain some advantages, it takes a lot of effort and energy to manage one team let alone work together with three. Many first teams might have to do this in the future in order to cope with lower fund raising money and human capital.

this being the only good thing that i can see with the topic, im not trying to criticize the topic of sister teams because its a great thing to help out a team but why with identical robotics, Why not help them design their own idea instead of guiding them twords an alike competition. It always excites me at competitions when new robots come forth and i like to see their designs, it really shows how critically they were thinking to the point that even a wooden robot can win a competition. Its not exactly how good the robot is its how good you compete with it thats what wins the hearts of people. you try, try, try again. Although i love seeing teams that may be rookies or newer teams up there at the top of the rankings i would feel so much more accomplished if i said We built it, We competed, We conquered. rather than, they built it (helped us with the idea) we competed, we conquered (with their help). it does show great enthusiasm on GP and chairmans awards

[viking1902]

This topic is a bit controversial. Another thread discussing this can be found here.

[Drew]

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

First, read the rules.

That should be the first step in any FIRST endeavour. In fact, the rules don't prohibit the exchange of designs. And if a team decides that it will release its design to the FIRST community at large, what's unfair about making use of it? And further, if two or more teams decide that they want to use similar designs, once again, the rules do not prohibit it.

More to the point, I suspect, you've offered very shaky justification for your position—you imply that teams "cant figure out how to do this game so lets wait until another team gets an idea and let them give us the fabrication idea's parts, and help [sic]". Maybe for the most complacent of teams, that's the case. But for most of the collaborative designs that I've come across, the design is the result of a partnership, and not of one team doing all the work while its partners merely clone the end result.

Also, the analogy of a business is not appropriate, because it a FIRST team will often want to allow you access to their design. In business, that sort of thing is the exception; in FIRST it is commonplace. For this reason, you can't expect that a team will necessarily attempt to protect its designs, as if they were the trade secrets of a business. (In some cases, teams keep designs secret to maintain a competitive advantage; in others, they give freely. There is no rule on this matter either.)

i made sure that I implied that no rules were being broken because i know for a fact that none were. But definatly I agree with almost everything you say and i am not taking away anything that these teams have done i kinda feel that what i said now may have resulted with many diffrent range of emotions. I myself just love to see what teams can do on their own with or without the guidance of another team. You all have helped me come to understand how this is a good thing but maybe bad or unfair at times. I dont disagree with anything though.

[Collin Fultz]

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...=collaboration
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...=collaboration
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...=collaboration

can we close this?

[Stuart]

the only ones who are hurt by this is the teams that collaborate. . how inspirational can it be to not build and design your own robot . . I dont think that its against the rules or should be illegal . . but if you want to build the same robot as another team why not save the 6k registration and just join up with that team?

anyway thats my take on it

[Drew]

[quote=Don Wright]It goes further than similiar... Just look around on CD for a few minutes...
QUOTE]


undoubtably it does go further than similiar because the teams from canada.... (sorry if im not precise because i dont know the numbers off hand) somewhere in the thousands have three or four identical robots.

[Drew]

Originally Posted by Stuart

the only ones who are hurt by this is the teams that collaborate. . how inspirational can it be to not build and design your own robot . . I dont think that its against the rules or should be illegal . . but if you want to build the same robot as another team why not save the 6k registration and just join up with that team?

anyway thats my take on it

definatly i agree

[Tetraman]

I enjoyed the "Division by Chicken" project that Division by Zero and the Thunder Chickens did last year...they took a similar path, but both robots were different. If more teams did that, it would be nice because you get more team on team interaction beyond the competition.

The teams that do this might have their own reasons. It could be that the mother team makes a design and the sister or rookie team builds off of that design to help get them into how to actually build a robot when it comes to next year.

It gets your team noticed too. If it wasn't this big of a hoo-ha I'd see if our team could team up with another team.

[Katie Reynolds]

Originally Posted by Drew

There is no creativity in these bots but the original designs. Its almost like, We cant figure out how to do this game so lets wait until another team gets an idea and let them give us the fabrication idea's parts, and help.

It's unfair to assume that teams with brother/sister/clone bots just couldn't figure out what they wanted to do, so they jumped onboard with a team that did. Do you know how the NiagraFIRST teams collaborate? How about the backstory of teams #70 and #494?

At the Milwaukee regional, I was curious about these two teams, as 70 was a pretty low number and I'd never heard of the "More Martians" before. So I asked a mentor for the teams about it and he filled me in. Bottom line: the Martians (494) did a pretty cool thing for a fellow team at their high school that was going under.

Originally Posted by Drew

Why is this, It kind of seems unfair.

Dean Kamen has said it numerous times - FIRST isn't supposed to be "fair".

• It isn't "fair" that Team XXX has a $100,000 budget, while Team YYY has $7,000 and Team ZZZ has $35,000.
• It isn't "fair" that Team XXX has a full machine shop at their disposal, while Team YYY has only handtools and a bansaw and Team ZZZ has only a machine shop to make parts for them - that they can't use.
• It isn't "fair" that Team XXX has 25 professional engineers and 15 high school students, while Team YYY has 30 high school students and 10 college mentors, and Team ZZZ has 5 professional mentors, 5 parents and 10 students.
• It isn't "fair" that the professionals on Team XXX build the robot, while the college students on Team YYY build theres, and the students on Team ZZZ do all their team's work.

But that's the way FIRST is supposed to work - as a microcosm of the "real world", and in the real world things aren't always fair. That's part of the challenge.

Originally Posted by Stuart

how inspirational can it be to not build and design your own robot

Who's to say what inspires someone and what doesn't? I could only be inspired by watching someone build a robot, while you could only be inspired by building it yourself. I could be inspired by playing music, while you could be inspired by listening to it. Inspiration is a funny thing, because people become inspired about the same things, in totally opposite ways.

I think everyone who's questioning these teams should talk to them about how they went through the design and fabrication process - you might just learn something yourself.

[Conor Ryan]

I recommend this for the Moderated Forum before it gets sticky

Ahh, The great collaborative design debate. Heres my 2 cents,

I don't see anything wrong with collaborative design? Why because all of the efforts that I've seen made are not all done by one team, its team work. Both teams come together and pool resources and build not one, but two robots, that tend to be very similar. Don't look at this as many people do, with one team leeching off of the other, the simple way to explain how it works is 2 heads are better than one. If you combine two teams you get a lot of benefits, double the mentors, double the resources, double the experience, pretty much a doubled team.

When one team meshes with another team and they can help each side's weaknesses, say one team has really strong programming but a weak electrical team, and another teams has strong electrical but weak programming, they come together and both end up with strong electrical and strong programming.

Never assume that when two (or even three) teams have a collaborative design that one team does all the work and the other two (or three) just sit around waiting to assemble their own. "Stock" Robots are the biggest misconception, these teams didn't get their designs from anywhere, they still came up with them on their own like any other team, the only difference is they worked on the project with another team.

[Tim Delles]

Originally Posted by Collin Fultz

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...=collaboration
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...=collaboration
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...=collaboration

can we close this?

Okay their have been numerous threads relating to teams collobration on robots. Thier have been teams for what I think 3 or 4 years now that collobrate. This topic has been beat dead twice that i know of already. So lets close it up.

[Katie Reynolds]

I'm merging "sister bots... Brother Bots.. Clone bots..???" with "Collaborations" since they're both new.

[Collin Fultz]

Originally Posted by Katie Reynolds

At the Milwaukee regional, I was curious about these two teams, as 70 was a pretty low number and I'd never heard of the "More Martians" before. So I asked a mentor for the teams about it and he filled me in. Bottom line: the Martians (494) did a pretty cool thing for a fellow team at their high school that was going under.

Actually, wasn't it that the mentors and students felt that the team got too big to accomplish their goals and inspire students the way they wanted to so they split into two teams? In order to prevent confusion as a "rookie" (since it is the same school/corporation sponsorship) they were given a low number that is no longer used.

As for how they did it, what I understood was that they had a single common design, but built the robot totally separately as two separate team. At least, this is what the lady in the pit for Team 70 told me in Cleveland.

[DjAlamose]

Originally Posted by Collin Fultz

Actually, wasn't it that the mentors and students felt that the team got too big to accomplish their goals and inspire students the way they wanted to so they split into two teams? In order to prevent confusion as a "rookie" (since it is the same school/corporation sponsorship) they were given a low number that is no longer used.

As for how they did it, what I understood was that they had a single common design, but built the robot totally separately as two separate team. At least, this is what the lady in the pit for Team 70 told me in Cleveland.

Not so sure on that one

From what I have learned, team 70 was almost on the verge of becoming non existent. The Martians stepped in to help them out. I also believe that a new sponsor was found for them, but the original school remained (causing the name change). This is form what I have learned, do not quote me on it, I’m not 100% sure.

Also, looking at the robots it has to be a collaborative effort, they are the exact same robot. I don't mind it at all but, They just have to be the exact same robot (look a few post to see a pic of them)

But seriously, this is a dead topic. Its been discussed over and over. But I can't help but add my 2 cents.

Team 9998 and 9999 are in a collaboration:
Team 9998 has 10 mentors and 30 students with a well off team and plent of funding.
Team 9999 has 1 Teachers, 10 students and is sponsored by a local company with not much help.

This is usually where these collaborations stem from. It is NOT to have a better design and it is not all about winning the competition. It is about helping another team with less fortunate circumstances learn more about engineering and technology than they would have on their own.

Originally Posted by Karthik

the reason we collaborate is not to build a better robot. Trust me, we'd be better off build a single bot. The reason we collaborate, is because it's the most efficient way to get more students exposed to FIRST. We simply don't have the resources, sponsors and mentors to support 3 separate FRC teams in our area.

As Karthik said, they would be better off not collaborating. They only do this inspire more people about FIRST and its message. With the Martians, I can see that they did the same thing, helping team 70 who was reformed become a stronger team by helping them through the process and showing them how it can be done. Remember, FIRST is not about the competition, it is about inspiring young people to peruse careers in Engineering, Science and Technology. The competition is just a perk and a way of seeing your work in action. Put inspiration before competition.

[Katie Reynolds]

Originally Posted by Collin Fultz

Actually, wasn't it that the mentors and students felt that the team got too big to accomplish their goals and inspire students the way they wanted to so they split into two teams? In order to prevent confusion as a "rookie" (since it is the same school/corporation sponsorship) they were given a low number that is no longer used.

As for how they did it, what I understood was that they had a single common design, but built the robot totally separately as two separate team. At least, this is what the lady in the pit for Team 70 told me in Cleveland.

From what the mentor who talked to me said, Teams 70 and 494 are from the same high school, and Team 70 was losing their sponsorship and was "going down". Team 494 stepped in and adopted them, and helped them out. The two teams worked together and created one design that both teams, seperately, made a reality.

On their FIRST page, it says Team 70's rookie year as 1998 - as far as I know, FIRST has never reassigned old numbers. Can anyone confirm this?