Multiples 2007

[miketwalker]

I can say that with 1902 and 1369, the collaboration was mutually beneficial. Both teams had quite low budgets and time limitations with college mentor classes. We still built 1902's robot in Dan's garage, we still built the majority of it with hand tools. This year's game required an autonomous that took several days to code and in doing a collaboration permitted the first robot to be done early for programming. To say that 1902 was just collaborating for an ungracious reason would be silly. I can say that I personally have spent more time with 1390 then 1902 this year, and I know that we have worked with the majority of the Orlando-area teams in one form or another helping their programs. 1902 has also worked on securing funds to help sponsor all the teams in the local area. The code that was developed for this collaboration has been taken in pseudo-code bits and shared with local teams in need of help.

In response to Tom's comment, I know that 1369 and 1902 both built their own robots. Sometimes 1369 would put extra resources into one area (for example, the drive base assembly) while we worked on something else (in this same example, the arm assembly). Neither team handed a robot to another team, not in any way. The photo of the 2 robots taken together was the only day I ever saw the 2 robots in the same room in fact. 1369 came to Orlando to work in Dan's garage on a day where the school couldn't allow them to work and both teams made a full day out of it. Several students drove over from Tampa that day. 1369s programmers also met with 1902s programmers at a house in West Orlando every weekend working in unison on the sensor testing and code design. There is no way we could say that one team built the robot and handed it to the other. 1369 built the base first, learned some lessons and told us before we put ours together. 1902 put the arm on the base first and passed on the lessons to 1369. We learned to use the assembly-line process to our advantage to increase efficiency and make much better use of our time.

Without the collaboration none of that would have been possible, I wouldn't have had the time to donate to 1390, the code wouldn't be in a position to help other teams, and we certainly wouldn't have had the first robot done a week and half early. Veteran teams pairing doesn't have to be a selfish act, and from what I saw this year was one of the best changes 1902 made in it's approach to expand. I think that you will see the Orlando area teams greatly benefited from this approach since we have been able to share our resources even though both 1369 and 1902 had small teams with small budgets.