Team Update #13

[Jon Stratis]

I just hope teams use common sense here. If it looks like a robot when you're carrying it in, i'm going to call it a robot, even if you've taken off a bracket and technically have two "fabricated parts". If you open up your crate and pull out no robot parts - only bumpers, batteries and tools - then you carried in a robot, even if it was in multiple pieces. Gracious professionalism doesn't include lawyering the rules to beat the intent.

[jspatz1]

It seems this whole issue is the result of introducing the withholding allowance concept in the first place. Last year its rationale was to help deal with the new control system, and yet this year it is still there, and has even been increased to the point of creating the "whole robot" issue. If they have introduced technology that they feel cannot be dealt with in 6 weeks even in its second year, then they should increase the build season accordingly. The whole "withhold part of your robot" concept has become somewhat of a can of worms. There will always be new stuff in the KOP to get familiar with. There will always be some geographic areas that have winter weather during a winter build season. Perhaps we should just get back to having a robot build deadline as we used to. It was unambiguous.

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by jspatz1

It seems this whole issue is the result of introducing the withholding allowance concept in the first place. Last year its rationale was to help deal with the new control system, and yet this year it is still there, and has even been increased to the point of creating the "whole robot" issue. If they have introduced technology that they feel cannot be dealt with in 6 weeks even in its second year, then they should increase the build season accordingly. The whole "withhold part of your robot" concept has become somewhat of a can of worms. There will always be new stuff in the KOP to get familiar with. There will always be some geographic areas that have winter weather during a winter build season. Perhaps we should just get back to having a robot build deadline as we used to. It was unambiguous.

OR -- we have FIRST adopt an even better strategy that makes both the annual shipping nightmare and the withholding allowance unnecessary. VEX, FTC and Lego League figured it out long ago. FRC just has to catch up.

-dave

p.s. Joe - don't sweat it. Some people, no matter what you do, will always work overtime trying to find fault with just about anything. There will always be those that constantly argue "the sky is yellow" even when it obviously isn't and you have explained multiple times that it isn't. Just ignore them and move on.

[thefro526]

Originally Posted by dlavery

OR -- we have FIRST adopt an even better strategy that makes both the annual shipping nightmare and the withholding allowance unnecessary. VEX, FTC and Lego League figured it out long ago. FRC just has to catch up.

I like the way you think Dave. I hope it's a sign of things to come.

[dtengineering]

I'd like to point out a few things that might help keep the "keeping your robot" and "witholding limits" issues in perspective.

Firstly, it has been quite common for teams to build two robots. One to ship, and one to practice on. It is a strategic game and engineering decision in which a team uses resources during build time in order to gain extra opportunities to work on code and driving... and even to manufacture the occasional spare, upgrade or replacement part.

With the new control system the cost of doing this increased significantly over the cost of the IFI system. Not a problem for teams with the deepest pockets, perhaps, but most teams would prefer to not purchase a second control system if they didn't have to. The witholding limit has helped our team, at least, to have the benefits of having a practice robot while still directing as much money as possible towards kids, rather than controls. For that, I am quite grateful for the introduction of the witholding limit. It not only makes our robot better, but far more importantly it makes our team better by giving the students more "hands on" time with the robot in the lead up to our event.

I am also not particularly concerned about teams who withold sufficient components and mechanisms such that they may quickly assemble those components and mechanisms into a robot when they arrive at the competition. They are sacrificing a lot of mass and potential pushing force, particularly when the limit is set to 40 pounds. Its less of a sacrifice, perhaps, at 65 pounds, but I can assure you that 110-120 pound robots will have a huge advantage over 65 pound robots when it comes to establishing position.

I also want to comment on the fact that the question of "how will the rule be enforced" isn't really that big of an issue. I am comfortable in the knowledge that the vast, vast majority of teams, and certainly -- from my experience -- ALL of the top calibre teams, will follow the rules to the best of their ability and understanding regardless of the enforcement mechanism. I am grateful that I get to take part in a competition with such classy competitors.

Finally, I want to reiterate my appreciation to the GDC for giving us some insight into the challenges they face when establishing and interpreting the rules. Often we are quick to criticize when something doesn't "make sense" from our perspective, but then our perspective as team members and leaders does not encompass the big picture of 1800 teams and events at over 40 venues in several countries around the world.

Jason

[artdutra04]

Originally Posted by dlavery

OR -- we have FIRST adopt an even better strategy that makes both the annual shipping nightmare and the withholding allowance unnecessary. VEX, FTC and Lego League figured it out long ago. FRC just has to catch up.

I like this idea, as it simplifies a whole mess of issues and can drastically cut back on costs for teams (so long as you have a pickup truck/SUV/minivan/trailer) and for FIRST, and also allows more leeway for teams who lose a week or two due to snow or other issues.

Being able to keep your competition robot right up until your competition events would also eliminate the need for practice robots. Teams wouldn't need a practice robot to continue training drivers or testing code or refining ideas for new mechanisms for their weight allowance when you have the actual competition robot right in front of you.

This would have the effect of giving every team a "practice robot", in that the powerhouse teams who already have a practice robot would be unaffected by the change, whereas the middle of the pack and lower teams would now have the added bonus of having a lot more time to dial in their mechanisms without shelling out the $$$ for a practice robot. This would raise the competitiveness of the bottom half of the teams quite noticeably, and would lead to many less "all-they-did-was-build-a-kitbot" robots on the field and a lot more competitive robots, which would surely make the competitions a lot more exciting for everyone involved.

[pathew100]

Originally Posted by dlavery

OR -- we have FIRST adopt an even better strategy that makes both the annual shipping nightmare and the withholding allowance unnecessary. VEX, FTC and Lego League figured it out long ago. FRC just has to catch up.

As a mentor, on one hand, I like where this is going.

On the other hand, I liked it when build 'ended' on ship day. There was a certain finality to it. It used to be a 'hard' deadline. I enjoyed things like sleeping again. And spouses were happier.

Now with the WITHHOLDING it seems that build doesn't end on ship day. Or at all. Instead we just have less to build with.

But I agree with the premise. The WITHHOLDING allowance (theoretically) provides teams with a better chance of showing up at their first event with a functional robot. It's no fun being down for matches, especially if you only go to one event!

Unfortunately, the WITHHOLDING may also have an unintended effect and encourage teams to show up with half of their machine in the WITHHOLDING that now has to be mated on practice day to whatever was put in the crate (the "ROBOT"). But I suppose they would not be doing themselves any favors by doing this (or the inspectors!).

[Foster]

Originally Posted by dlavery

OR -- we have FIRST adopt an even better strategy that makes both the annual shipping nightmare and the withholding allowance unnecessary. VEX, FTC and Lego League figured it out long ago. FRC just has to catch up.

As a VEX mentor I like the VEX system of bring your robot and compete with it. We do four events a year. After the first event 75% of the robots get completely disassembled and rebuilt. After the second event about 50% of the robots start from scratch. So across the season, the robots get better. The later competitions (like the Mid-Atlantic this weekend and the Eastern PA regional in March) see some very competitive robots that have been reworked (and re-reworked). At $75 an event and having 6 to pick from an hour drive from home makes this possible.

On the other hand I love the FRC ship by 5PM Tuesday or don't play. It's a real deadline. It has real meaning. It's kind of like the real world, it's got to ship so make it work. And at $6K an event it's hard to go to many of them a year. So it makes the playing field somewhat level. Our team goes to two events. We do an early event (Hello FLR!) and learn a lot. We revamp, fix, change and bring parts to make our robot better at the second event (Yo Philly!). We would do that even if limited to 5LBS of parts.

I applaud the GDC on the 65LB rule for 2010 to help the snowbound. I applaud the GDC for the "hey, don't bring assembled robots it annoys the following people ..." transparency. I applaud those of you who will follow the spirit that it was done in, after all at the end of the day, it's only a game.

So keep the withholding, next year drop it back to 40LBS or so, getting a chance at Rev2 helps. Bag and Tag sounds like a possible second solution if FIRST can get the OK to bring fully assembled robots. But the hassle of 60 teams AND 60 robots makes my head hurt.

And I'll follow Dave's suggestion on the ignore button for the others. ('cause I'm sure I'm on many ignore lists)

[Mr. Van]

Originally Posted by dlavery

OR -- we have FIRST adopt an even better strategy that makes both the annual shipping nightmare and the withholding allowance unnecessary. VEX, FTC and Lego League figured it out long ago. FRC just has to catch up.

-dave

VEX & Lego League are completely different beasts! The parts are limited. There is no real fabrication, the robots are easy to carry, move and store. More importantly, THE GAMES ARE ANNOUNCED MONTHS BEFORE COMPETITIONS! For a Vex robot, it doesn't matter much if you've got 4 months or 5 months to work on a robot. It makes a HUGE difference on the scale of FRC if you've got an additional month (or even a week) to work.

(Now, if FRC took a page from the Vex playbook and introduced the 2011 game at the 2010 Championship, that would be different.)

Extending the FRC build season from Kickoff in January to Championships in April will serve to make the gulf between the "have" and "have not" teams even worse (it comes down to mentor availability). A 4 month build is vastly different from a 1.5 month build.

Give us a year-round competition, OR give us a hard "ship-the-robot-put down-your-tools-get-some-sleep-go-back-to-doing-some-homework-remember-that-you-have-a-spouse-and-take-care-of-your-health date".

-Mr. Van
Robodox

[Karibou]

Originally Posted by pathew100

As a mentor, on one hand, I like where this is going.

On the other hand, I liked it when build 'ended' on ship day. There was a certain finality to it. It used to be a 'hard' deadline. I enjoyed things like sleeping again. And spouses were happier.

Now with the WITHHOLDING it seems that build doesn't end on ship day. Or at all. Instead we just have less to build with.

I completely agree with this - I liked the hard deadline. I liked being able to finally put the robot in the crate freshman year and say "it's done, it's done, it's done!" (I'm not as much of a fan of FiM, with the bagging and such, but that's a completely different apple) If we did not have the withholding allowance, I might have time to work on getting a team consensus for the nominees for the new award - we wouldn't have any robot-related items to work on until the team's chosen unbag time on Saturday. Right now, we have half of our robot out of the bag, and it's being assembled on the prototype chassis - we might be able to drive again tomorrow if everything gets wired up quickly. My team is small, and this is really putting a strain on our capabilities. Trying to write a total of 8000ish words with a robot sitting safely in the bag is easy, but it's significantly harder when you're constantly asked to be in the shop working on an unfinished practice robot.

[Wetzel]

Originally Posted by dtengineering

I'd like to point out a few things that might help keep the "keeping your robot" and "witholding limits" issues in perspective.

Firstly, it has been quite common for teams to build two robots. One to ship, and one to practice on. It is a strategic game and engineering decision in which a team uses resources during build time in order to gain extra opportunities to work on code and driving... and even to manufacture the occasional spare, upgrade or replacement part.
<snip>
Jason

I think you have some great points Jason, and hope you don't mind my snip of those, but I want challenge your assertion that it has become common for teams to build a practice robot. A fair number of teams active on these forums build practice robots, but the teams active here are a small subset of all FRC teams. I'd be interested if someone at each regional could go around to ALL teams there and figure out if they build a practice bot. A good secondary data point is how many built just a secondary chassis. I'm just not confident that a practice bot is anywhere near common.

Wetzel

[artdutra04]

To everyone who would miss the "finality" of the ship date... wouldn't the arrival of the Regional yield the same finality" to robot build time? It's a different finality, but still a finality.

Unlike some previous posters, I completely disagree that this would lead to a greater gulf between "have" and "have not" teams, but rather believe the opposite would occur. The "have" teams already have full practice fields, practice robots, and a dynamic partnership between their mentors, students, teachers, and sponsors. No matter how long the build season is, they will still crank out amazing robots.

But for the middle of the road teams, just another week could make the difference between a robot that barely works to one which works quite well, and with a bit of driver experience. For these teams, time is their most limiting resource. Give these teams more time, and they have more man-hours of robot design, fabrication, and testing time.

But there comes a point where increasing the number of man-hours leads to decreasing return-on-investment. A gut intuition guess would be that many of the powerhouse teams are nearing this peak, and that an extra week might only help them improve their robot efficiency in its operation by maybe 10%. On the other hand, a middle of the road or rookie team with much less resources and man-hours spent on their robot might see a 50% boost in performance from the same additional week of the build season.

Since such an eliminate-ship-date-rule would not in anyway set a glass ceiling limiting how high the "have" teams can reach, while still providing an immeasurable benefit to the middle of the road and rookie teams, as well as drastically increase the competitiveness and excitement of competitions (much to the delight of the audience), this is something I whole-heartedly support.

[Nick Lawrence]

I like the hard deadline, but I like a less claustrophobic build time more.

It sure would make the season thousands and thousands of dollars cheaper, for everyone.

I'd vote for it, if my vote counted.

-Nick

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by artdutra04

But for the middle of the road teams, just another week could make the difference between a robot that barely works to one which works quite well, and with a bit of driver experience. For these teams, time is their most limiting resource. Give these teams more time, and they have more man-hours of robot design, fabrication, and testing time.

While I think this seems true now, I think for middle of the road and lower teams, the time needed to do the work would simply expand to fill the time allotted. Teams would likely still be as behind as they are now, just with less leeway.

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by Nick Lawrence

I like the hard deadline, but I like a less claustrophobic build time more.

Parkinson's Law -- "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." Even if they gave us 12 weeks, I'm quite sure the final week would be claustrophobic.

I have yet to be on a team that did not run up against this law. (In my FLL days, probably 40% of the work was done in the week prior to the competition, and we had 3.5 months!)