**FIRST EMAIL**/Invitation to Beta test the New Control System

[Arefin Bari]

Originally Posted by Daniel_LaFleur

I know that the teams that are picked will do all they can to help other teams, but the nature of getting things first is that it's an advantage (and an unfair one at that).

Open up their shops? -- Yes they will do this, but seeing a robot/program run and getting a few questions answered vs actually programming it with the nuances of a specific controller are 2 different things. And it's the little things that those teams overcome that will be 'missed' by the teams that don't get that advantage.

Saturday workshops? -- 4 hours in a lecture/lab on a Saturday does not make up for 3+ hours Monday-Friday getting the thing running.

Release all the code? -- Does this include competition code? all the code from now til doomsay? or just until others get the RC? and when does this code have to be released by? getting code that runs on one machine does not mean that it will run on another without knowlege of why it runs (which the veteran teams are getting that knowlege, and the others aren't) and what will need to be modified.

Basically what I'm saying is that FIRST is basically telling 1st and 2nd year teams that they are not good enough to help the community, because they are new. And when you exclude some group from helping, you hurt everyone.

Again, I want to state that I know these teams will do what they can to help others ... but that doesn't change the fact that they are being given an advantage and that FIRST is deliberately excluding groups that may want to help.

Daniel, I understand where you are coming from and maybe it is a disadvantage because the 1st and 2nd year teams aren't getting the controller to mess around with before kickoff.

Here are few things I would like to point out...

1) We don't have single programmer on the team (Team 1345). We have had the help from Team 108's programmers and Kevin Watson's code.

2) It's just not a "lecture." FIRST teams function differently than most other organizations. If you are to ask an expert in FIRST (whether mechanical, electrical or software), they won't say no and they will explain the concept to you until you understand and I am willing to bet that teams who are chosen will have workshops for local teams which will be hands on and just not a lecture.

3) Teams who will beta test this control system will release codes. No they won't give you your robot's competition code. But we will at least have the default code. FIRST has already suggested programmers to look at specific programming language. If the default code is given to you and if your programmer has been training him/herself, he/she should be able to write the rest of the code. If not, take your robot out to the local team and ask them for help. They will help you with the code just as Team 108 did for Team 1345 this past season.

4) All the knowledge that I have gained from this FIRST program is from usually researching about different things. For example, I didn't have an actual transmission to play with when I designed my first transmission. I came out here and looked at what others have done. I took their design and modified it to my needs. Isn't that how engineering works?

I am assuming that there will be very few controllers for this beta testing. How do you propose FIRST to choose these few teams out of existing 1,500 teams around the world?