Update #16

[cziggy343]

i did not read all of the replies to the initial message that was sent to see if there was an idea similar to this one, but one of our mentors came up with the idea that a section of the pit should be roped off for use of heavy equipment (band saw, drill press, etc.) so that there would still be some place to work with big machinery. because at some points in time, hand-held tools are much more dangerous than drill press, band saw, etc.

i can completly understand why they want the safety, but in all seriousness, the teams need a place to work with more than just handtools.

so to make all of the lawyers out there happy, just do that: rope off a section to where teams still have a place to work.

if people like that idea, i encourage lots of people to take it and email it to first, because team 343 will.

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by cziggy343

i did not read all of the replies to the initial message that was sent to see if there was an idea similar to this one, but one of our mentors came up with the idea that a section of the pit should be roped off for use of heavy equipment (band saw, drill press, etc.) so that there would still be some place to work with big machinery. because at some points in time, hand-held tools are much more dangerous than drill press, band saw, etc.

i can completly understand why they want the safety, but in all seriousness, the teams need a place to work with more than just handtools.

so to make all of the lawyers out there happy, just do that: rope off a section to where teams still have a place to work.

if people like that idea, i encourage lots of people to take it and email it to first, because team 343 will.

We are one step ahead of you. I'm proud to announce that the crew at the LA regional took all this under consideration and has allowed teams to use these tools in a designated location, outside of the pits, under adult supervision, and under strict safety rules and careful operation. We feel this is a more than adequate solution for the time being, and I find that many teams enjoy the extra space to operate the larger tools.

[Wayne Doenges]

We are one step ahead of you. I'm proud to announce that the crew at the LA regional took all this under consideration and has allowed teams to use these tools in a designated location, outside of the pits, under adult supervision, and under strict safety rules and careful operation. We feel this is a more than adequate solution for the time being, and I find that many teams enjoy the extra space to operate the larger tools.

This is what I have been hoping to see. Everyone complained about Update #16 but no one offered a solution to the problem. I would like to see all regionals adopt this centralized shop. Hear that Boliermaker
Just make sure the adult supervisor knows how to operate the tools.
GJ

[Bill Baedke]

I have been a mentor on Team 217, the Thunderchickens, since 1999, as a retired engineer, and a machinist. As Paul Copioli mentioned we bring machine tools to the events and always help other teams. FIRST events used to offer a designated location where it was safe to grind--good idea, but they no longer seem to do this except for a few local exceptions. Toronto, last year, requested that volunteers set up an on-site machine shop. With about 6 or 7 people staffing it we were able to keep up--no one waited more than 5 minutes for their job to be started. It was a great success and I will be doing it again this year.

I have talked to people in charge at various competitions over the past several years about ways to improve the supply of machine shop facilities. They don't seem to be interested (to give them the benefit of the doubt, I don't believe they think there is a problem).

I talked to Dennis Howland, a FIRST Official, last year at the Championship and sent him the following letter in January. The letter was also sent to Bill Miller, who I believe is the head of FIRST, that same month. No one from FIRST has ever contacted me to see if anything I talked about has merit. They don't appear to be interested. I don't think they get the idea that FIRST is for the students (not that we don't have fun too), and that students learn from doing and seeing things being done, not from being told things can't be done.
Bill Baedke, Team 217

Letter to Dennis Howland and Bill Miller (sent Jan 07):
I have been involved with our team 217 since 1999 and I have worked in the on-site workshops at several regionals and championships. When Comau Pico brought their trailers, in the beginning, they brought machinists, then, when they could not afford it, they asked for volunteers to work in their trailers. At the Toronto Regional, I worked in the all volunteer machine shop, so I think I have a range of experiences on the subject.

I believe we can improve the on-site machine shop service at the Championship with the help of more volunteers. As I see it there is a far greater need for machine shop work than is being provided. With hundreds of teams at Atlanta, it is not enough to have 5 or 6 people to help the teams with machine shop service. My observations over the years show that the need for work is very high on Thursday and Friday, then it tapers off on Saturday. Last year I spent time at the machine shop desk on both Thursday and Friday just observing. This is what I saw:
The Problem
People come and want a hole drilled, a piece cut off or some other small thing done, but they don't have the tools. They ask how long it will take and are told it will be an hour or two (or more). They leave very disappointed and go to find an alternate solution. After all, they don't want to wait. This means that the number of jobs done by the shop does not come close to the demand. When we had the Comau Pico trailers there, we had as many as 15 or so workers and we still could not keep up those two days.
I am not saying that the NASA people did not do a good job, just that we need more. As you know, I offered to help the NASA people do work, but was told that I was not allowed.

Possible Solutions
Try to get the Comau Pico people to bring their trailers again and get volunteers to work with them.
Try to find other companies that have portable machine shops to bring their tools/trailers.
Try to get NASA to allow volunteers to work in their trailer. They could use more machinists.
Many teams bring small lathes, drill presses, milling machines etc. and are more than willing to help other teams make/modify parts. The problem is in that large pit area how is a team needing work going to find the team that has a tool they need?
Team Tools (Expansion of Item #4)
How can we utilize the resources already at the Competitions (regionals and championships)?

A. Have a list available at the Machine Shop of all the teams that are willing to help other teams, and what type of machines they have. Not the best solution, in my opinion, but would be an improvement.

B. Ask the teams that are willing to help make parts to bring their machines to the machine shop area so they can become part of the machine shop. This way, jobs can be given to the proper machine/machinist according to size, degree of difficulty etc.
This solution solves another problem. Our team usually can bring more tools than we can fit in our pit area, so we have to limit what we bring. If we had a separate place to put them, then we could have more available to help others. This is what we did in Toronto last year. The leader organized a machine shop area with electricity where all the volunteers brought their tools. With about 6 people working, and allowing some of the customers to do their own work on our machines, we were able to handle about 60 teams quite well, so that most people were serviced immediately--no waiting. Extrapolating that number means we need about 25 people at the Championship.
I hope that you will come up with a solution to the problem of too much demand and not enough supply. It was very sad for me to see the disappointment on the students faces when told it would be 3 hours before their 5 minute job would be started. I felt much better when I worked in Toronto and we could do that 5 minute job in 5 minutes and see the delight on their faces when they knew they would get their robot running soon.

An added plus of having more than enough supply means that we can spend some time helping the students solve a problem, help them with the engineering or suggest a better way to make the part so it is stronger, lighter etc.

Thanks,
Bill Baedke, Team 217
76533 McKay
Romeo, MI 48065

586 752 3241 home
586 255 0025 cell

[BiTurboS4]

Dennis Howland is the Volunteer Resources Manager and Bill Miller is the Director of FRC, and Bill would be the one to deal with that situation. You shouldn't be put off due to a lack of response, both of these gentlemen get an extraordinary amount of email from many different people. Sadly, mailing a letter would probably gain attention much quicker.

[cziggy343]

well, im glad to see that since so many people are mad about it, that somebody is doing something. if we want it to b changed, then we have to do something.

[KTorak]

This morning, at GLR, they announced that we could use grinders, drill presses, and bandsaws as long as they did not create sparks.

[Not2B]

I have to say - the match pairings and sorting was much better at GLR than last week.

Thanks!!!

[Tim Delles]

I must say that this week at FLR the match pairings were not any better.

229 played against 1126 4 times and with them once.
229 and 1930 play 191, 395, 1551 (all as an alliance) twice tommorow... Yes its exactly the same alliance.

I know that other teams competiting have played 5 or 6 matches with or against the same people here. Now i understand that FLR is small (35 teams). But still you should not be playing a single team more than 3 times at most. Let alone playing the exact same alliance twice.

[jgannon]

Match pairing was not much better at Pittsburgh, either. In addition to seeing the same opponents several times, we were also seeing the same partners several times. In addition, I know that several other teams were having issues with matches being very close together. At least one team today had to immediately go on deck after finishing a match. 7 minutes is not enough time between matches. I understand that the algorithm is trying to optimize for several constraints, but the only one that it seems to be hitting consistently is pairing a low, mid, and high number team. I'm still not sure that this is what we want as customers. It's fun to see some balance, but I also like to occasionally see good pairings. As this algorithm stands, none of the Delphi teams (45-48?) or the UTC teams (173-177?) will ever get to partner up in quals. Some otherwise spectacular pairings (70/71, 111/118, 217/229, 1503/1680 come immediately to mind, but I'm sure there are dozens more) just won't happen. Personally, I'd like to play with some rookies instead of against them all the time. Does anybody think this is the way match pairings ought to be?

[jagman2882]

we had the same exact alliance for our first 3 matches....us(1126), 316, and 1728.....small regional or not that is rediculous!!!

[sanddrag]

Another update from LA. To me, the match pairings seem mostly fixed, and back to good ol times, as far as I can tell.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

Another update from LA. To me, the match pairings seem mostly fixed, and back to good ol times, as far as I can tell.

Sort of... we were against 188 twice in a row, and we'll be with the same team twice in a row tomorrow.

[sanddrag]

Originally Posted by Cory

Sort of... we were against 188 twice in a row, and we'll be with the same team twice in a row tomorrow.

alright. I didn't take notice, so, Cory knows better than I...

[Sean Schuff]

I'm not normally one to complain but lately it seems that FIRST is giving all of us more reasons to do just that. My hope is that this latest misstep leads FIRST to come up with a systemic solution that will begin to address the underlying issues that Paul and others have referenced in this thread.

I hate to admit it but I did not read Update 16 until I was told about it at the Wisconsin Regional on Thursday. We were one of only a handful of teams who had a "machine shop" (band saw, drill press, sander/grinder) in our pits. The official machine shop was off site (minimum 30+ minutes for a part?? C'mon!) and we were doing our own work as well as work for other teams. I would venture to guess that we are much like the other teams who have simple machining capabilities in that we do more work for other teams than for our own. That is after all the spirit of FIRST, isn't it? Out of 52 teams at the event 22 were rookies and another 11 were only in their second year. This was definitely a regional heavily weighted by new teams. The ability to help these teams definitely contributed to their success. I can't imagine how things would have turned out had we not been able to lend them a hand. We all know that time is of the essence at these events and when literally seconds matter, many times it is critical to have the right tool for the job and sometimes that tool is a power tool.

At the Wisconsin Regional we were originally shut down on Thursday around mid-day. I was told about the update and spoke to two of the safety advisors, one in his first year with FIRST, the other in his second - neither had been on a team. They listened to my concerns and told me they would look into it. Clearly they knew of the rule but had no idea why it had been implemented. Later in the day I spoke with one of the event coordinators and was told there was a clarification to the rule that morning and we COULD use our machines.

Friday morning arrived and when our pit crew and mentors arrived at our pits, they were surprised (read as "quite concerned") to see five safety advisors standing by our pits. Once again we were shut down. They told our team FIRST had clarified the rule that morning and had banned the machines once again. Again, I expressed my concerns about the logic of the decision and again, they had no clear explanation as to why. About mid-day I was told we could set our power tools back up again. Huh??!!

My initial concern was over the fact that FIRST had made the decision in the first place with, as others have pointed out, NO explanation. For the life of me I could not come to a logical conclusion as to why. Are bench tools really more dangerous? Don't they trust us to do the right/safe thing? Are we drawing too much current at the venue? Are they doing this in the name of a “level playing field”? I just couldn't see it.

After all the waffling on the rule it was clear to me that the decision was made with little thought as to the consequences and no input from teams. This is the latest in a disturbing trend of decisions and rulings that appear to disregard the value of input from teams. The post-season forums to discuss how things went during the build and competitions are a step in the right direction but they have been hosting those for quite some time. FIRST needs some team representation in the decision making process they are using. Take some of the more outstanding, respected mentors - Copioli, Baker, Hughes, Patton, Olivera, Skierkiewicz, Green, Kanagasabapathy, etc. - and create a sounding board of mentors in the trenches who can provide feedback before these decisions are released to the entire FIRST community.

Our team has already discussed the "why's" of the power tools decision and are already discussing ways to address the problem but without knowing definitively why FIRST made the decision it is difficult for us to come up with details for potential solutions.

I am anxious to hear the explanation.

Sean

p.s. Paul - please reconsider. Or call me when you come up with something new!