paper: Stop the Stop Build

[kaliken]

Originally Posted by Richard Wallace

The Average Joes built a practice robot this year, because we knew (from our last two years) that the way to be competitive* is to practice. More access to our competition robot would have been a better solution.

So I am curious. If you had no bag and tag would you still build a practice bot?

Actually for the entire CD would you still build a practice bot if there was no bag and tag? I just am curious in which way the community is leaning (especially from some of the powerhouse teams)

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by kaliken

So I am curious. If you had no bag and tag would you still build a practice bot?

Actually for the entire CD would you still build a practice bot if there was no bag and tag? I just am curious in which way the community is leaning (especially from some of the powerhouse teams)

We'd likely make one practice bot instead of two.

[Karthik]

Originally Posted by kaliken

So I am curious. If you had no bag and tag would you still build a practice bot?

Yes. For the following reasons:

1. The practice robot usually often serves as a "beta edition" of the competition robot. Developing one helps you catch issues that can be entirely circumvented in a clean manner on the competition robot.
2. There's only room for so many hands on a robot at one time. Having a practice robot allows for software and mechanical development to happen in parallel. Even with a true 16 week build season, there would still be time crunches where having to development platforms would be an asset.
3. Wear and tear. Our competition robot is usually at the end of its life span by the end of Championship. Our practice robot always in much worse shape than the competition robot. I can't imagine putting that many hours of drive time into one robot.

This probably doesn't apply for most teams. But for a team who has the resources to comfortably complete two robots, it's easy for me to see why they would continue to do so, even with the potential abandonment of the bag.

[ThaddeusMaximus]

Originally Posted by Karthik

Yes. For the following reasons:
3. Wear and tear. Our competition robot is usually at the end of its life span by the end of Championship. Our practice robot always in much worse shape than the competition robot. I can't imagine putting that many hours of drive time into one robot.

orrrrrrrrrr get rid of 120lb weight limit so parts can be designed for infinite fatigue life and still be viable?

[Mike Schreiber]

Originally Posted by ThaddeusMaximus

orrrrrrrrrr get rid of 120lb weight limit so parts can be designed for infinite fatigue life and still be viable?

Not to get too off topic but interesting point

How do you plan to carry the robot to the field?

Originally Posted by The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)

...the maximum weight to be lifted with two hands, under ideal conditions, is 51 pounds

Source

FIRST already pushes this limit since we are usually lifting from the ground and load capacity is generally reduced to about 80-90% during a two person lift since the weight isn't exactly split by 50% at all times.

[AllenGregoryIV]

First off, Jim thank you for putting this together, it's an excellent read.

The middle ground proposal is a very good step in the right direction. The only thing it doesn't easily allow for is teams to hold scrimmages on weekends when they aren't competing. In this proposal it is still advantageous to compete more often during the season. This becomes less of a problem once all areas are in districts as competing additional times is less expensive and you are already competing more often. For teams that are not in a district system I could see how having more than 8 hours of ROBOT ACCESS time would be needed to get the full benefits of what a practice bot currently allows.

At that point we are just changing a single variable, I do strongly agree with the plan in general.

[NShep98]

Originally Posted by AllenGregoryIV

For teams that are not in a district system I could see how having more than 8 hours of ROBOT ACCESS time would be needed to get the full benefits of what a practice bot currently allows.

This is actually where my confusion came in as to how this would interact with the current District Access Period, because the point of districts getting extra time is to offset the additional day regionals get.

[Collin Fultz]

Originally Posted by NShep98

This is actually where my confusion came in as to how this would interact with the current District Access Period, because the point of districts getting extra time is to offset the additional day regionals get.

Perhaps with this proposal Regional Events could start their matches after lunch on Thursday, allowing more time for more matches.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Collin Fultz

Perhaps with this proposal Regional Events could start their matches after lunch on Thursday, allowing more time for more matches.

Someone just made that suggestion in the other thread. We can do that, provided that we get a district schedule as far as load-in/inspection. That is, we start load-in/inspection at 5 PM Wednesday, practice Thursday morning, and pray that enough refs make it by noon to start.

Sound reasonable?

Now do that with a 40-team regional. You're only adding another half-day of matches, so that regional now gets about 16 matches/team, more than any district, before elims. What was that about district events giving more plays than a regional? (Or else you add massive downtime/slow cycles.) Oh, you don't like that part of it. So you're going to have two regional schedules, one for large and one for small. How confusing will that be?


Remember, Thursday from noon to 6 is practice matches at regionals. And some teams can't even make their last scheduled match (or the filler line) and have to come to the field later to connect robot to field. In order to speed that up to be from 9 to noon or so, the regionals are going to need extra inspection time on Wednesday evening, particularly large early-season regionals.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by EricH

Someone just made that suggestion in the other thread. We can do that, provided that we get a district schedule as far as load-in/inspection. That is, we start load-in/inspection at 5 PM Wednesday, practice Thursday morning, and pray that enough refs make it by noon to start.

Sound reasonable?

Yes, because regions are already doing that right now.

Now do that with a 40-team regional. You're only adding another half-day of matches, so that regional now gets about 16 matches/team, more than any district, before elims. What was that about district events giving more plays than a regional? (Or else you add massive downtime/slow cycles.) Oh, you don't like that part of it. So you're going to have two regional schedules, one for large and one for small. How confusing will that be?

16 matches for $5000 still comes out behind districts offering up 24 at the same price. Regionals follow the same schedule template handed down to them from Manchester, but without any cap to a regional outside of physical space in the venue, very few regionals are exactly alike.

[PayneTrain]

I also want to add that while I do not speak for Collin, I believe he is a former FRC Team Advocate at FIRST HQ and the current president of IndianaFIRST. I imagine he would like whatever we can try out to improve the team experience.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

Yes, because regions are already doing that right now.

Your Wednesday "inspection" at a regional is "Here's the green tag saying you can open the bag tomorrow morning, be safe setting up your pit". (Or you get the dreaded "red tag": See the LRI to clear the lockup form, withholding, or other "oops".) Same as the Thursday "early load".

Districts are doing inspection on load-in night. Champs is doing inspection at uncrate. Regionals? Sign form, check withholding and bag integrity, and make sure that no work is done on the robot.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by EricH

Your Wednesday "inspection" at a regional is "Here's the green tag saying you can open the bag tomorrow morning, be safe setting up your pit". (Or you get the dreaded "red tag": See the LRI to clear the lockup form, withholding, or other "oops".) Same as the Thursday "early load".

Districts are doing inspection on load-in night. Champs is doing inspection at uncrate. Regionals? Sign form, check withholding and bag integrity, and make sure that no work is done on the robot.

I occasionally use the word "region" to describe an area in district events. Regionals are independent of a region.

Let me amend: events in FIRST at a size equivalent to a regional already do what you have described.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

I occasionally use the word "region" to describe an area in district events. Regionals are independent of a region.

Let me amend: events in FIRST at a size equivalent to a regional already do what you have described.

And no (actual) regionals do that. I'm sure the teams could adjust (well... MOST of the teams, I can think of a few that are probably not going to catch the change easily), and the volunteers can probably adjust. Assuming that FIRST decided to make such a change.


BTW, just as a thought: If the context is going to make it confusing to use "region", such as above, it may be worth it to use a different term, as "region" can make some people think you're misspelling "regional". Just for the sake of clear communications. I often use "district area" to describe an area that runs district events, myself.

[Collin Fultz]

Originally Posted by EricH

Now do that with a 40-team regional. You're only adding another half-day of matches, so that regional now gets about 16 matches/team, more than any district, before elims.

In 2016, around 64% of Regional teams only attended one event. 16 Qual Matches at a Regional where around 2/3 of the teams there will only compete on that weekend sounds pretty great!