Lessons Learned - The Negative

[BurtGummer]

Well, being a rookie team, it was our first year in Atlanta.

But once again I will bring up the topic of a rookie team. From this weekend, I see FIRST defining a rookie team as a team with a number from 2700ish to 3100ish. AKA a number chosen this year. So I have a question. Is team 2753 a rookie team who has never participated in FIRST? What about 3091? 2753 was almost exactly the same as 399, and 3091 sounds like several teams just recombined into one, making them a rookie team. Can anyone clarify this for me? If they are in fact rookies, who have never done FIRST before, then who built the robot? I can guarantee it wasn't the students. I am not saying that we should of won by an means......I would have been happy if any real rookie team won.

Second.....rules. First off, regionals need more control. We fit easily into the measuring box at the LA Regional, but somehow our robot grew 3/8 of an inch between then and Atlanta, and the frame was not bent. In fact, I cut off a piece that was a little too high on Thursday morning just because I didn't like it sticking up. It fit that way into the measuring box at the LA Regional, but after cutting it off, it didn't fit in the boxes at Atlanta. If you are going to be so specific about something, the equipment measuring it needs to be precise as well.

Wiring colors? I'll be honest, I had no idea because I didn't have the time to sit down and read a rule book, and other students assigned the task did not complete it. But with that aside, why does it matter what color a wire is? Gauge is of course understandable, but the color? I've been working with electrical 'stuff's for years. IMO, it's a rule that is not necessary. Rules are normally for controlling the robot entries from having extra advantages (Size, Weight). But wire color? Come on. Don't pull the safety card on this either. Knowing a wire is ground or hot shouldn't decide how you work with it. You treat every wire like it's hot, just like you always treat a gun like it's loaded. On top of that, our wire coding was not correct at the LA Regional either, but none of the inspectors noticed. It would definitely help if we knew about it then, rather than at the Championships.

Third. Mentor involvement. Some of the teams I see have robots that you just KNOW that high school students didn't build, because when you go to the pits, you see a mentor fixing it, not a student. If your students are not capable of building a high caliber robot, then don't. Build a kitbot. They'll get more experience out of building that than some other complex robot. When awards were given out at the individual divisions, I saw several teams with parents/mentors getting handed the awards, with the students following behind them.

Match scheduling. If you want people to 'watch the monitors' make them visible! Being next to FTC, the only thing we saw was FTC. Being 8 minutes ahead of schedule, in my opinion, is unacceptable. If times are given out to the minute, then that schedule should be stuck to. Sure, fall behind, but getting ahead? We had to fix a bent frame from a match right before, which took A LOT of work, and then we show up at the field 8 minutes early and the match had already started.

Overall, I see a lot of unnecessary control in places, and not enough/no control in many others. I agree on several other things in this thread, like G14 and the control that human players had. Having a good human player could easily win the match for you, not the robot. But I won't elaborate that stuff.

I will say that I am glad I went to Atlanta and had the opportunity to experience it, because it will be much harder to get there after our rookie year. It had the fun parts.....and it had the parts that made me steaming mad. Some improvements can definitely be made though.