Preseason Design: What are the Limits?

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Tom Bottiglieri

So I guess KWat's code, WPILib, and anything from a repository is off limits then, eh?

It's the custom around here to consider such code to be the equivalent of off-the-shelf components and thus not subject to the "must be designed after kickoff" rule.

[AndyB]

I think that offseason design should be promoted if anything. What good is going through a 6 week build season if you don't take those value, and take those skills that you've learned, and apply it towards something.

[Mr. Van]

Originally Posted by Cory

I have parts on my robot that stay the same every year. (wheels, frame members, etc). I'm supposed to redraw these components from scratch, just so I can conform with this rule?

The sad fact is that teams were supposed to do something like this LAST YEAR. I believe we have a situation where so many teams violated the rule that the rule itself is basically useless. Teams that followed it (in the spirit of GP as section 8.8.3 notes) were punished while those that didn't follow it were not.

The question is how to address FIRST's concern that veteran teams have design solutions for various systems (like drive) that remain the same year after year. Sometimes these design solutions are good enough that a team does exceptionally well at a regional based on a design solution that was developed two or three years earlier. Given that a student might be on a FRC team for two or three years, they might never have been part of the design process!

Perhaps a possible way to address this problem is to take Alan's idea that designs (and software code) that are "published" are equivalent to COTS. That way any team is free to design away as long as the design is released to the public and any team is allowed to use it. Perhaps CD White Papers could be recognized by FIRST as an appropriate location to "publish". (I think that simply posting designs on a team's webpage would not be enough - too many teams, too many ways to bury the design.)

Does this address the apparent concern of FIRST and allow for teams to continue development year to year and year-round?

-Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Mr. Van

Does this address the apparent concern of FIRST and allow for teams to continue development year to year and year-round?

-Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

Not really. This may come off as arrogant and elitist, but I see no reason to force teams to give up proprietary information so they can circumvent a rule that makes no sense in the first place. I'm all for sharing of information and designs, but not outright handing someone a stack of finished CAD drawings that will allow them to replicate your work with zero effort, or modifications on their part.

edit: apparently I was unclear. I am referring specifically to parts that may stay the same year to year, that were designed during a previous build cycle. I'm not sure I like this idea for prototyping either, as I think it should be up to the teams to decide what they want to release. If it comes down to it most teams would probably just make minor changes to their "proof of concept" designs and call it a day.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by Cory

...I see no reason to force teams to give up proprietary information so they can circumvent a rule that makes no sense in the first place.

The rule makes sense in the context of a robot-building competition. It has the effect of making each team do a similar amount of design work every year, regardless of how long the team has been around. That limits the ability of a team staying dominant just because it has a private pile of well-tweaked and well-tested complete designs at its disposal, regardless of its current talents.

It does not make a lot of sense in the context of inspiring students to pursue careers in engineering. It removes the real-world option of using an already-invented wheel to solve a perpetual problem. It can't completely eliminate the benefit of having done things already, so the team might naturally try a solution that worked before. Unfortunately, causing the team to design the same thing again can turn what should be an exciting process of discovery into a session of uninspiring drudgery.

Since the rule applies only to building a competition robot, and not to anything else the team wants to do, I'm leaning toward deciding it makes sense.

[AdamHeard]

I agree with Cory for several reasons.

Because of the nature of FIRST, and us being completely unaware of the game, no game specific advantage can be obtained preseason.

Also, forbidding designs from the preseason hurts newer teams more than powerhouses. A newer team will benefit a lot more from a pre-designed base than a veteran. Trust me, if the rules became more strict on this, 254 would I have problem making a different 6WD that works awesomely. Veteran teams are going to be farther ahead no matter what restrictive rules are applied.

I know what the rule says for 2007, I'm just hoping it is different for 2008. Engineering isn't entirely about trying new things; from my years of interning at Northrop Grumman I have never seen them immediately move to a new design/custom part when they already have a design or off the shelf part to fulfill the role.

EDIT: in response to Alan; I think this rule 90% effects drivetrains. It's really the only thing similar enough year to year. I'll admit you have far more experience with FIRST than me, but I can't imagine an entire arm/manipulator being reused. I know some teams like 233, 330, 60/254 (with that arm) have re-used the general concept year to year, but it is always significantly different and legal by the above rules. So, since this affects mostly drivetrains, and veteran teams can usually make those no problem regardless of the pre-season, I think this rule is pointless.

[Madison]

Anecdotally, as a consequence of this "rule" -- and I strain to call it that because it's part of a preamble and not bulleted for easy reference -- I redesigned the drive train we had prototyped this time last year the morning of kick off. I didn't reference any of my existing drawings or models; just rebuilt everything from memory.

I'd been refining the design for months prior to kickoff and knew it inside out. It wasn't what I wanted to be working on at 10 am the day of kickoff, but I got it done before lunch and we never looked back. I'm pretty well prepared to do the same thing again this year, if it comes to it, though again I'd rather spend my time doing something more important.

[JesseK]

I think it all really boils down to one derivation of fact: for any given strategy there is a best design. If you don't intend to ever change your strategy and you've already derived the best design, there is no reason to change it.

Furthermore, if you've documented the processes enough over time that it takes you 10 minutes to setup a mill and automated welding robot arm that you've taken your team and developed, it's no wonder that your team does better. It would seem logical that this is in the spirit of FIRST.

However, I think the spirit of this rule is to not only keep teams from cheating pre-season, but it is also so that a group of students that passes through a veteran program do not miss out on HOW or WHY something was designed a certain way. If you design XYZ unbeatable drive train in 2004 for a strategy, those students will have moved on by 2008. If that same team simply keeps using the same design & strategy, the new students greatly miss out on the design process, and that is NOT in the spirit of FIRST.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

...I can't imagine an entire arm/manipulator being reused.

Can you imagine reusing a significant piece of one? Consider a turntable design, for example, or a robust scheme for driving an elbow with embedded feedback. If the arm were capable enough, it could be reused easily -- consider the wide variety of games played using the same basic human arm.

There was a moment last season when a few of us noticed that our 2007 robot's arm design was sufficiently generic that it could have played the 2005 and 2004 games with only the end "gripper" replaced. Combine it with the pneumatic turret lift we used in those games and it could have played them very well (heck, it probably could have played the 2006 game as well as our actual robot did).

Given a few iterations to merge the features of those robot arms and tweak them for reliability and better modularity of the end effector, I think we could credibly use the exact same arm design for many possible FRC games, and have a finished robot two weeks after the kickoff. It wouldn't be highly optimized for the game, but it would work and it would give us plenty of time to practice.

Not that I'd advocate doing things that way...on the other hand, our 2007 drivetrain was very good, and I wouldn't argue against reusing it completely if it fit the game (and if it weren't against the rules).

[Cory]

Originally Posted by JesseK

However, I think the spirit of this rule is to not only keep teams from cheating pre-season, but it is also so that a group of students that passes through a veteran program do not miss out on HOW or WHY something was designed a certain way. If you design XYZ unbeatable drive train in 2004 for a strategy, those students will have moved on by 2008. If that same team simply keeps using the same design & strategy, the new students greatly miss out on the design process, and that is NOT in the spirit of FIRST.

FIRST's philosophy has always been live and let live, when it comes to teams inspiring. They have never taken a position in the past on the whole student-mentor debate, and view all teams equally, whether the students never touch the robot or the mentors never touch the robot.

I can't imagine that they would suddenly try to tell teams how to inspire their students. The rules should be there only to restrict the competition, not to have oversight on whether or not the teams are effectively inspiring their students. If a team wants to run themselves in the manner you listed, then frankly, that's their prerogative, and nobody has the right to tell them they're wrong.