Team Update #1

[BJC]

Originally Posted by IndySam

I would agree if there were more than a handful of FTC teams around here.

Wouldn't it have been greater to have the 50 or more Vex teams in this area inspired and in demand?

I think FIRST needs to find a dose of the gracious part of GP 'cause they seem to have forgotten.

Even if a bunch of Vex teams did make super fast mini bots, thats only about 1/4 of the race. The real challenge is making one that can go on every sort of robot. They would need to design not only a minibot, not only a deployment system, but figure out a way to attach it to many different robots in a variety of ways. Basically, there is no way a Vex team built mini-bot will ever outpreform a decent FRC team's specific-to-them one. Vex teams will have to trade a lot of speed in deployment for a universally attaching Minibot and deployer. As long as the FRC team's mini bot isn't terribly slow it'll pretty much win because they will be able to make it deploy faster.

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by wilsonmw04

FRC teams have been competing in FTC games since Face Off. Why is it so odd that FIRST would combine their two high school programs together for their 20th year? I think folks need to "chill-lax" (to all my students: I hope I used that word correctly...). Dean was very clear that this is FIRST and we are all FIRST teams. What is the problem with that?

BTW: a rat race, I believe, was intended not ballistic minibots. The GDC has a vision of what the game will look like. I'm sorry they didn't have the same idea as you did.

What I meant to say is that should an FRC team not registered for FTC plan on participating in an FTC game? It is an honest statement. I understand that we are all FIRST teams, but all I have to ask is WHY? It will just be "fun" watching 4 robots drive up a pole and see who makes it up the fastest. Hey, we can place bets each match!

[IndySam]

Originally Posted by BJC

Even if a bunch of Vex teams did make super fast mini bots, thats only about 1/4 of the race. The real challenge is making one that can go on every sort of robot. They would need to design not only a minibot, not only a deployment system, but figure out a way to attach it to many different robots in a variety of ways. Basically, there is no way a Vex team built mini-bot will ever outpreform a decent FRC team's specific-to-them one. Vex teams will have to trade a lot of speed in deployment for a universally attaching Minibot and deployer. As long as the FRC team's mini bot isn't terribly slow it'll pretty much win because they will be able to make it deploy faster.

you kinda totaly missed the point,

[wilsonmw04]

Originally Posted by IndySam

you kinda totaly missed the point,

Would you be as so kind as to tell me what IS the point? Right now all I see are several people whining (quite loudly) about the decision of the GDC on the rules of a game that they made.

Wait, never mind. What makes that any different than any other year? Carry on!

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by BrendanB

What I meant to say is that should an FRC team not registered for FTC plan on participating in an FTC game? It is an honest statement. I understand that we are all FIRST teams, but all I have to ask is WHY? It will just be "fun" watching 4 robots drive up a pole and see who makes it up the fastest. Hey, we can place bets each match!

This may have to do with opportunities to develop partnerships between and among the programs. There is also an opportunity to use some of the new mentoring initiatives that have been put in place for FRC. It may require a little bit of flexible thinking to be open to the possibilities and opportunities that are available. What I took away from the Kick Off was that it would be beneficial to think about these opportunities rather than to dismiss them too quickly.

Jane

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by BrendanB

I understand that we are all FIRST teams, but all I have to ask is WHY?

Why not?

I have, about sixty miles from my (middle of nowhere) school, a small consortium of FTC teams (five, I believe), all sponsored by the same company (Corning Glass). None of these schools do FRC.

Now that I know that they can build minibots, I am contacting them and letting them know about the opportunity to participate in the festivities. The more people coming to FRC competitions, the more people are being exposed to FRC. This includes school administrators, parents, sponsors, students, teachers, etc, etc, etc.

I hope they decide to get involved. I hope they build awesome FTC Minibots and show up and loan them out. I hope they put '1551' on them...

[Norman J]

I have heard in the past that constraint encourages ingenuity, in a way. As people get more limitations placed on them, they can think more creatively within the bounds of those constraints.

An example is Mad libs. If you tell someone to write a funny story, most people can't come up with something good. If you ask people "Give me a funny adjective, a funny noun and a funny verb." You can get pretty creative answers.

So basically, while I am still slightly disappointed by the lack of launching ability, I am still confident that a strong, innovative team will be able to produce a minibot that can outperform most others and come up with a cool solution despite the limitations.

Good engineering involves working with constraints, not complaining about them.

[Chris Fultz]

I just want to want to make one clarifying point -

If you compete in VEX, you are only allowed to use official VEX parts, with just a few exceptions.

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by Norman J

Good engineering involves working with constraints, not complaining about them.

This should be stickied at the top of every thread...

[Joe Schornak]

Meh.

Despite the new 84" dimension cylinder, there are still incentives for teams to build compact arms. Like not having it spectacularly ripped off in a collision, for one. We probably won't significantly change our arm design. Maybe the gripper, if it's beneficial.

I've never really liked the FTC kit. My team tried FTC as an exercise in 2008/2009 before the FRC season started. None of the components fit together particularly well, and I can never get pieces to line up or attach in a sturdy fashion. The whole system seems limiting, since there are only a number of ways to attach things like wheels and gears, which subsequently never fit where I want them too. For some reason I never have this problem with Legos.

In our brainstorming sessions, my team never seriously considered taking the launching minibot route. One of our mentors proposed it, and everyone chuckled as we thought of pneumatically firing the FTC battery pack into the sensor (so as to be entirely legal, of course). We expected that particular loophole to be closed in the first update, as has clearly happened.

Under this update, could a minibot use the battery pack and motors but not the NXT? I assume this to be the "associated, appropriate circuity" in <G19>. Forgive me if this question has already been beaten to death in Minibot Thread #41.

[ahollenbach]

I'd like to remind everyone that they are on their FIRST robotics teams for a reason. And yes, while you are entitled to your opinion, respectfully keep it to yourself or a very small group of your peers, rather than making yourself sound like a fool on a forum that the GDC will not listen to.
The two major issues people have been having:
60" -> 84"
If you are so hell-bent on having this wonderful engineering challenge, then have it! Anyone who disagrees with the expansion of the cylinder parameters, I have personally changed the rules, so only your teams must be inside a 60" diameter. Problem solved
P.S. A lot of you are contradicting yourselves - you are angry that the minibot is being stripped of its creativity, but expanding the cylinder expands options, thus enabling creativity.
Which brings us to the next big issue:
The MINIBOT
Yes, the parts are expensive, and *maybe* they are limiting your creativity, but who cares? I think the suspense will make it worth it...And as we saw in kick-off, a minibot can easily make it up in ~7 seconds. So whoever has been estimating 14 and 16 seconds for these things...well I don't know what you had planned, but hopefully you go back to the drawing board. As for those who want the engineering challenge - many have previously mentioned, the challenge is designing a minibot that can go on any robot with barely any modifications.

Remember, you are doing FRC (and posting on this forum) because you like your FIRST robotics team. Some of you are beginning to sound more like trolls than engineers

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Chris Fultz

I just want to want to make one clarifying point -

If you compete in VEX, you are only allowed to use official VEX parts, with just a few exceptions.

But if you compete in VEX, they don't make you use VEX in all the other robotics competitions you enter.

FIRST went so far as to change the rules of this other competition midseason to eliminate a viable design that didn't use enough of the Tetrix product.

[skimoose]

I'm not happy with this decision mostly from one standpoint that has not been stated yet. MONEY!

If you're a struggling team, $275 for FTC registration, then $749 for a FTC kit. An extra $1000 just to create your own minibot. Oh but wait, if I spend even more money and compete in an official FTC event, I can get $500 off my FRC registration next year... now that's some incentive. Oh and I'd have to buy more FTC hardware or dismantle my minibot to build an FTC robot. It just keeps getting better.

Secondly, has anyone thought about what the minibot costs will do to their $3500 robot budget?!?! Robot = Hostbot + Minibot, remember that in the rules. The minibot is not exempted from your BOM budget as the rules currently are written unless I missed it. FIRST, how do I deal with budgeting a foreign FTC team's (not my own FRC team's) minibot, and if my local FTC teams are still competing or are eligible to go to St. Louis, they're going to take their FTC robot apart to make a Minibot for my team. I doubt it.

[wilsonmw04]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

But if you compete in VEX, they don't make you use VEX in all the other robotics competitions you enter.

FIRST went so far as to change the rules of this other competition midseason to eliminate a viable design that didn't use enough of the Tetrix product.

I thought they did it for the safety of the volunteers, staff and teams.

On a side note: I don't think your vex response makes any sense. Vex doesn't have any other competitions as far as I know. What's the problem with FIRST limiting you on the parts you use for the minibot? They do it every year in FRC in one way or another.

[artdutra04]

Team Update #1 was just FIRST's attempt at maintaining their record of always creating one nearly universally-hated rule every year.

Originally we were planning on a sub-one-second time from breaking the Tower plane to hitting the trigger, but now G19 and physics says that's impossible. Good bye innovation. Good bye inspiring designs. Hello clone bots with identical performance.

At this rate, Team Update #2 should just eliminate the Minibots and replace it with the drive team captains playing rock-paper-scissors to determine the bonus points.

Originally Posted by wilsonmw04

I thought they did it for the safety of the volunteers, staff and teams.

The energy required to safely and efficiently launch a Minibot would have been a fraction of what most teams had last year in their kickers. Teams managed fine last year, so I don't see how somehow they are incapable of designing safe devices this year.

Besides, rampant strategies (such as teams firing things at the trigger than aren't completely wrapped around the pole) could have been avoided by adding a rule disabling the tower if the Minibot hits the carpet.