Team Consistancy

[Levin571]

Originally Posted by Alex Cormier

another thing i have seen is in many of those top teams. They re-use ideas and bases form previous years. Look at HOT's 04, 05 arm, it was used before. 1126 has used the same base for 3 years now, 254 has used a similar base for a while now. Why reinvent the wheel entirely every year?

Can this reusing also act as a hinderance sometimes since the teams fail to accept new ideas that may be better?

[Lil' Lavery]

Most of the "elite" teams share a few things in common:

They have dedicated and supportive sponsors, many of which give large amounts of funding, fabrication, machinery, and/or floor space.
They have a dedicated and supportive group of mentors, teachers, and adult volunteers who return year to year.
They have above average machine tool and construction capability.
They meet almost every day (typically at least 5 meetings per week for several hours) during build.
They prototype new ideas and designs during the summer/fall.
They have a wide selection of techniques and designs that they have used in the past and often re-use.
They have experiences and ideas gained from previous years games, results, successes, failures, and other robots.
They have a proven and effective design technique, and know what strategic decisions to make in terms of robot design.
They are mindful of weight, cost, and size constraints through-out the design and fabrication periods.
They finish fairly early in the build season, giving themselves time to test, debug, integrate, and practice.
They have skilled drivers with hours of practice under their belts by the time competition season begins.
They have robust designs that survive the strains of competitions with little failures.

THEY SHOW UP WITH FINISHED ROBOTS (unless they are 469)

[ChrisH]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Most of the "elite" teams share a few things in common:

They have dedicated and supportive sponsors, many of which give large amounts of funding, fabrication, machinery, and/or floor space.
They have a dedicated and supportive group of mentors, teachers, and adult volunteers who return year to year.
They have above average machine tool and construction capability.
They meet almost every day (typically at least 5 meetings per week for several hours) during build.
They prototype new ideas and designs during the summer/fall.
They have a wide selection of techniques and designs that they have used in the past and often re-use.
They have experiences and ideas gained from previous years games, results, successes, failures, and other robots.
They have a proven and effective design technique, and know what strategic decisions to make in terms of robot design.
They are mindful of weight, cost, and size constraints through-out the design and fabrication periods.
They finish fairly early in the build season, giving themselves time to test, debug, integrate, and practice.
They have skilled drivers with hours of practice under their belts by the time competition season begins.
They have robust designs that survive the strains of competitions with little failures.

THEY SHOW UP WITH FINISHED ROBOTS (unless they are 469)

You missed one, but it might be wrapped up in #2

The most consistent teams I have seen all have a tremendous amount of parent involvement. This seems to be at least as critical as good mentors, and seems to be true even for teams that do not have a lot of technical parents.

So if you want to move your team to the big leagues, concentrate on getting your parents involved. They will go out and find the technical people you need.

[burkey_turkey]

Originally Posted by Levin571

Can this reusing also act as a hinderance sometimes since the teams fail to accept new ideas that may be better?

My team was running into that problem some this year. We have no seniors on the team, so all of the leaders are juniors. We were heading up the different design groups, and everything we came up with eneded up being exactly what was on our robot from 2005. We sat down and talked about why this was happening as a team, and we got some team alumni in on the discussion too. we realized that we get only 1 robot a year, the one we make during build season, so you need to get out of your comfort zone and go for whatever. We reworked the design and now we have a unique robot, that will be a challenge to build and is very different from anything weve done in the past, and everyone is very happy with it.

What im getting at is, what is the point of being a consistently good robot year after year if it is just the same robot year after year. sure you might have had a good thing going for a while, but you need to experiment a bit and go wild to keep on the cutting edge. innovation happens not when you improove existing designs, but when you do something completely different that works better than you imagined.

[Dan Petrovic]

I think it's all about the process. A team finds a process that works well for them, and they stick with it.

So far, our new design process of having a small, core design group has definately proved it's effectiveness to us. It may work for some teams, it may not work for others.

2005, the robot was essentially designed by a small group of people, last year, the robot was essentially designed by a small group of people, but neither of those years were very attractive years looking back at them because the design was finalized too late into the season.

This year, we went in knowing that we will have a small design group finalizing the design early on. We had a basis done Wednesday of week one, and today, the CAD team finished every part on the robot in Pro-E. This has been the one of the best, if not, the best years since my family became affiliated with the team back in 2002. This system, so far, has worked very well for us.

What I'm trying to say is that not all teams have always been good right from the get-go. Some have been (1126 for example). It may take a year or two find the process that best suits the way the students like to work. They repeat that process and get the same results.

Now... I don't really have a way to justify the amazing year one year, and then a not-so-amazing year the next. I have a feeling it has to do with some major change in the team structure, sponsor, location, or something like that. Or it could vary based off of the games we get. I can name a couple of teams that did very well in 2005 and 2004, but not so well last year.

[nuggetsyl]

Your want to talk about a team which has consistancy. That has to be 173 rage. Highly underrated and always finds a way to make it on the big stage.