paper: Stop the Stop Build - Counterpoint

[gblake]

I like what you have written, but I personally would have finished with a differnt, perhaps more sharply contrasting counterpoint.

The on-the-field performance of teams/robots is not the central focus of the FRC program described on FIRST's website, nor is it the thread tying together the many descriptions offered by FRC's founders and current leaders. However, in the day-to-day operation of many FRC teams, and in the minds of many participants, on-the-field performance becomes the tail that wags the dog. With that in mind, and wanting to reduce the amount of dog-wagging done by that tail ...

A) I believe that having (recreating?) an actual 45-day build season would be (restore?) an excellent part of the foundation of wise compromises that FRC rests upon. FRC should push in this direction.

B) I think that the the on-the-field performance exhibited by the teams that are already doing well (in that part of FIRST), is good enough. I don't mean to say that better performance would be harmful; but if I'm right, I do mean that across the globe, for the teams that aren't struggling, improving the on-the-field part of FRC should not be pulling time, attention, and other resources away from the other parts of FRC.

Now, to get to the heart of it:

For the teams that are not doing well, and are consequently exhibiting the trouble-on-the-field symptom, giving them an 8 hour out-of-bag period each week (or not) seems to be a relatively small item a big picture. I think that properly preparing them to make good use of their 45 days will make the 8 hours unnecessary (the extra time won't hurt, but it won't be *necessary*). If a team makes good use of those first 45 days, they will be ready to do well enough when they roll into their first event. If instead they are currently using the 45 days poorly, it seems intuitive to me to expect that after a year-or-two transition they will be using added 8-hour windows poorly too.

So ... Please don't let a post-stop-build-day weekly unbag period rise to the top of the list of ways to assist struggling teams. Instead let's focus on helping them with project management, and everything that is tied to that subject; along with helping them with the soft skills of recruiting students and mentors, finding funding, having effective meetings, etc.

I know the original paper's author isn't focused so strongly on the 8-hour unbag topic that he is ignoring other ways to help struggling teams. I also know he is part of a large, deeply-caring and highly-motivated FiM team that wants all students to succeed.

But, reading this paper, a reader can get the impression that the OPR tail ought to (and will) wag the FRC dog. Instead I think OPRs and similar symptoms/metrics won't change for the long haul until the dogs are healthy. A few unbagging periods will help a little, but still won't make the dogs healthy. The root causes for struggling will still be there.

Given my beliefs, I'm personally led to believe FRC shouldn't be churning its ranks with debates about ways to extend/expand build seasons. There are much more important fish to fry.

Sure, ask permission to try a handful of small well-designed unbag experiments, but worry about them only after getting permission to carry out pre-build-season experiments that will attack likely root causes, before attacking what is likely to be only a symptom. If that is what is already happening, the paper does itself a disservice by not mentioning building on or amplifying those efforts.

Blake

[JB987]

Originally Posted by gblake

I like what you have written, but I personally would have finished with a differnt, perhaps more sharply contrasting counterpoint.

The on-the-field performance of teams/robots is not the central focus of the FRC program described on FIRST's website, nor is it the thread tying together the many descriptions offered by FRC's founders and current leaders. However, in the day-to-day operation of many FRC teams, and in the minds of many participants, on-the-field performance becomes the tail that wags the dog. With that in mind, and wanting to reduce the amount of dog-wagging done by that tail ...

A) I believe that having (recreating?) an actual 45-day build season would be (restore?) an excellent part of the foundation of wise compromises that FRC rests upon. FRC should push in this direction.

B) I think that the the on-the-field performance exhibited by the teams that are already doing well (in that part of FIRST), is good enough. I don't mean to say that better performance would be harmful; but if I'm right, I do mean that across the globe, for the teams that aren't struggling, improving the on-the-field part of FRC should not be pulling time, attention, and other resources away from the other parts of FRC.

Now, to get to the heart of it:

For the teams that are not doing well, and are consequently exhibiting the trouble-on-the-field symptom, giving them an 8 hour out-of-bag period each week (or not) seems to be a relatively small item a big picture. I think that properly preparing them to make good use of their 45 days will make the 8 hours unnecessary (the extra time won't hurt, but it won't be *necessary*). If a team makes good use of those first 45 days, they will be ready to do well enough when they roll into their first event. If instead they are currently using the 45 days poorly, it seems intuitive to me to expect that after a year-or-two transition they will be using added 8-hour windows poorly too.

So ... Please don't let a post-stop-build-day weekly unbag period rise to the top of the list of ways to assist struggling teams. Instead let's focus on helping them with project management, and everything that is tied to that subject; along with helping them with the soft skills of recruiting students and mentors, finding funding, having effective meetings, etc.

I know the original paper's author isn't focused so strongly on the 8-hour unbag topic that he is ignoring other ways to help struggling teams. I also know he is part of a large, deeply-caring and highly-motivated FiM team that wants all students to succeed.

But, reading this paper, a reader can get the impression that the OPR tail ought to (and will) wag the FRC dog. Instead I think OPRs and similar symptoms/metrics won't change for the long haul until the dogs are healthy. A few unbagging periods will help a little, but still won't make the dogs healthy. The root causes for struggling will still be there.

Given my beliefs, I'm personally led to believe FRC shouldn't be churning its ranks with debates about ways to extend/expand build seasons. There are much more important fish to fry.

Sure, ask permission to try a handful of small well-designed unbag experiments, but worry about them only after getting permission to carry out pre-build-season experiments that will attack likely root causes, before attacking what is likely to be only a symptom. If that is what is already happening, the paper does itself a disservice by not mentioning building on or amplifying those efforts.

Blake

Blake,
Much of your point here is based on the attribution of poor choice/time management on the part of struggling teams. In many cases, teams are limited in time they can spend each week and are limited as far as access to build facilities by school or district fiat. Additional weeks to work directly on their robot could help them better deal with time limitations...who knows, maybe even give them time to add an autonomous element to their performance

[gblake]

Originally Posted by JB987

Blake,
Much of your point here is based on the attribution of poor choice/time management on the part of struggling teams. In many cases, teams are limited in time they can spend each week and are limited as far as access to build facilities by school or district fiat. Additional weeks to work directly on their robot could help them better deal with time limitations...who knows, maybe even give them time to add an autonomous element to their performance

I understand.

However, there are skilled and experienced FRC people (who are excellent teachers/mentors) and teams that can show other teams how to turn one long, hard weekend into a decently-sophisticated, working robot.

If instead of using skilled /experienced people and a long, hard weekend, a team that has been struggling learns project management skills, plans and executes pre-season preparation/practice; then during the season, thinks up, designs, and executes a robot (including simple autonomy ) that is within their abilities and that fits comfortably within the 45 days; I predict success.

What will make or break them (for this part of being a team) is whether they can learn to set very modest goals initially, and only incrementally-increase the sophistication of their goals AFTER they have proven they can handle the modest goals.

With that in mind, unless they are simply limited by outsiders to truly ridiculously small amounts of time per week, I'll bet a very nice dinner that any *motivated* team that has learned to manage a project well, can build a good-enough FRC robot in 45-days (and build a better one the next season).

Basically, the struggling team needs to learn to accomplish (on average) in each of the 45 days (on a simple robot+controls), roughly what the fast-and-furious folks accomplish in each hour (on a reasonably sophisticated robot) during their 48 hour sprints. OBTW, to help the struggling team, they can get detailed design/implementation info for previous-season robots and controls from several sources.

If a struggling team's time-available-to-work is so tightly constrained that they can't accomplish what I described, regardless of how well they manage their project/time; then it would be a *good* idea (not a bad idea) to rethink the entire subject of competing in FRC. FTC, VRC, etc. are almost certainly better choices for them in that situation.

Bottom line: How to build an FRC robot+controls in under one week is well known. With preparation, building a rugged, dependable, allies-like-to-see-you, cookbook-ish, simple bot built in 6 weeks (with time set aside for practicing) for a given season has got to be do-able, unless the team is in a situation that is simply incompatible with FRC. The next season they can adjust their goals.

Blake
PS: Again, all of this is in the context of not letting the tail wag the dog. A simple robot that easily understood and altered is an excellent robot, if the team uses it, and the competitions, to inspire people to consider looking into STEM(ish) careers seriously. The team doesn't have make people into STEM graduates, or overwhelm audiences with the FRC equivalent of a space shuttle. Instead they just need to open peers' eyes to the fact that a STEM career can be rewarding, is worth considering, and is within their grasp.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by gblake

I understand.

However, there are skilled and experienced people (who are excellent teachers/mentors) and teams that can show teams how to turn one long, hard weekend into a decently-sophisticated, working robot.

If instead of a using skilled /experienced people and a long, hard weekend, a team that has been struggling learns project management skills, plans and executes pre-season preparation/preactice; then during the season, thinks up, designs, and executes a robot that is within their abilities and that fits comfortably within the 45 days; I predict success.

What will make or break them (for this part of being a team) is whether they can learn to set very modest goals initially, and only incrementally-increase the sophistication of their goals AFTER they have proven they can handle the modest goals.

A unless they are simply limited by outsiders to truly ridiculously small amounts of time per week, I'll bet a very nice dinner that any team that has learned to manage a project well, can build a good-enough FRC robot in 45-days (and build a better one the next season).

Basically, the struggling team needs to learn to accomplish in each of the 45 days (on a simple robot+controls), roughly what the fast-and-furious folks accomplish in each hour (on a reasonably sophisticated robot) during their 48 hour sprints. OBTW, to help the struggling team, they can get detailed design/implementation info for previous season robots and controls from several sources.

If their time-available-to-work is so tightly constrained that the struggling team can't accomplish what I described, regardless of how well they manage their project/time; then it would be a good idea (not a bad idea) to rethink the entire subject of competing in FRC. FTC, VRC, etc. are almost certainly better choices in that situation.

Bottom line: How to build an FRC robot+controls in under one week is well known. With preparation, getting a cookbook simple bot built in 6 weeks for one season has got to be do-able, unless the team in a situation that is simply incompatible with FRC. The next season they can adjust their goals.

Blake

The thing is, it takes teams a while to learn this lesson (if ever). No amount of external mentoring, help, etc... will cause the shift until the leadership of the team is ready for it.

Once bag day happens, there is no time machine to go back.

However, if after competing once (at a low level) they see teams they can copy some details from (and perhaps receive from advice from others), they can take their robot that isn't scoring points at all and have it contribute at their second event.

I'm absolutely certain that kids prefer scoring points to not scoring points, and ideally greater inspiration will follow.

Potentially that greater inspiration will lead to them wanting a better plan for season, to get done sooner, to realize those benefits etc... but we can't just state from our high horse that kids should just do it right the first time.

We don't need to get rid of the bag, we just need to allow unbagging windows for all teams all weeks.

[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

We don't need to get rid of the bag, we just need to allow unbagging windows for all teams all weeks.

Why is this supposedly better than just getting rid of the bag?

This is still regressive, it's just marginally less-regressive than the current policy.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

Why is this supposedly better than just getting rid of the bag?

This is still regressive, it's just marginally less-regressive than the current policy.

It's a more likely compromise.

[gblake]

deleted by gblake

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by gblake

If I'm understanding you, and if I use somewhat prejudicial wordings ...

In the season when the team flails, they will get to flail for a few extra hours per week after flailing for 45 days.

In the next season (or two), once they learn, they will understand how to do well-enough during the 45 days, and won't require the extra hours.

Furthermore, offering any number of possible methods (that give struggling teams per-season exemptions) to stave off the flailing in the first place sounds like a great thing to focus more attention on, instead of churning ourselves over the unbag time.

If FIRST HQ does implement a weekly unbag period, after a brief transition period, unless struggling teams are simultaneously taught (and willing to learn) project management skills, teams that have eyes/plans bigger then their 45-day abilities now, will very quickly become teams with eyes/plans bigger than 45-days plus Nx8 hours. We will be right back where we started (I predict).

If I didn't also believe that the 45-day building period has value, I would say, "Who cares? Build 365 days per year."; but I think a reasonably-long, limited, build season (a true one, not a fictional one) is a valuable part of the program. I know other reasonable people disagree about that. Thereby hang some tales.

Blake

You're completely missing the point about having acccess to your robot after having competed once, and before having competed again.

From some combination of outside help and seeing what others teams have done, 2-8 hours in this time can be far more valuable than 2 weeks during the build portion for a team that isn't capable of finishing on time currently.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

You're completely missing the point about having acccess to your robot after having competed once, and before having competed again.

From some combination of outside help and seeing what others teams have done, 2-8 hours in this time can be far more valuable than 2 weeks during the build portion for a team that isn't capable of finishing on time currently.

You are right - I did blow right past that. I apologize. Ima deleting my earlier post.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

The thing is, it takes teams a while to learn this lesson (if ever). No amount of external mentoring, help, etc... will cause the shift until the leadership of the team is ready for it.

Once bag day happens, there is no time machine to go back.

However, if after competing once (at a low level) they see teams they can copy some details from (and perhaps receive from advice from others), they can take their robot that isn't scoring points at all and have it contribute at their second event.

I'm absolutely certain that kids prefer scoring points to not scoring points, and ideally greater inspiration will follow.

Potentially that greater inspiration will lead to them wanting a better plan for season, to get done sooner, to realize those benefits etc... but we can't just state from our high horse that kids should just do it right the first time.

We don't need to get rid of the bag, we just need to allow unbagging windows for all teams all weeks.

A semi-nitpick is that I think the process I'm hypothesizing for a struggling/rebuilding team will produce a robot that will score points (FIRST designs the games that way); and what is often equally important, it will be rugged and dependable, and will score those points reliably/consistently.

For that reason the teams with the simpler bots might be envious of the (successful) more sophisticated bots, but they shouldn't be uninspired - In a rebuilding/struggling period, they did what they set out to do, and did it well. They stopped struggling (in the robot-building part of being a team). Next year they can be a little more ambitious.

More to your point, if, in addition to the 45 days they give teams before the teams initial competitions, FIRST HQ decides to offer all teams (or maybe just the recovering teams???) a few hours of use-what-you-learned time AFTER each competition a team attends, I think that would be consistent (consistent enough) with what I am urging. I wouldn't lose any sleep over that.

However, to minimize (legit?) wingeing by teams whose initial/only competition includes opponents who have already competed once, the extra time might need to be something teams can use whenever they like, but not be big enough (seductive enough) to significantly exacerbate poor management (wishful thinking) during the original 45 days.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

The thing is, it takes teams a while to learn this lesson (if ever). No amount of external mentoring, help, etc... will cause the shift until the leadership of the team is ready for it.

Once bag day happens, there is no time machine to go back.

However, if after competing once (at a low level) they see teams they can copy some details from (and perhaps receive from advice from others), they can take their robot that isn't scoring points at all and have it contribute at their second event.

I'm absolutely certain that kids prefer scoring points to not scoring points, and ideally greater inspiration will follow.

Potentially that greater inspiration will lead to them wanting a better plan for season, to get done sooner, to realize those benefits etc... but we can't just state from our high horse that kids should just do it right the first time.

We don't need to get rid of the bag, we just need to allow unbagging windows for all teams all weeks.

Having been on this team as a student, I can say absolutely yes. We really weren't aiming too high, and we weren't procrastinating (any more than we do now). We just had no idea what we were doing. We had no reference for what too complicated or poor design was. We didn't shortchange our drivetrain; we just thought 2wd would be a good idea. We figured it out belatedly, but that regional was not so inspirational. Another year we didn't try to do multiple tasks or end effectors; we just really thought an 80/20 arm that weighed more than the robot base was a really good plan. We actually realized that error later in build season and slap-dashed an alternative thing on before ship. Should we have realized sooner? Duh (I say now from my high horse). And we learned that lesson for next year. But having it sit in the crate that year really sucked. We did so terribly at that event and it was so uninspirational and damaging to the team that people literally started fighting and I sobbed and tried to quit (I was like 14). Fortunately, that year we actually had two events, and we wised up and reached out and borrowed another simple (but much better) end effector design from someone, and...well it still wasn't such a great experience because our drivetrain was also pretty terrible and we didn't have the opportunity to fix other issues we'd found, but I definitely would've preferred to substitute it for our first event. And if we'd been able to get hands-on time and fix more stuff? I don't know how well we would've done, but man, that would've been a really great learning and inspirational experience for me.

It's hard for me to explain in retrospect how ridiculously clueless we were. It wasn't time or task management. Our teachers were pretty good with that (as much as when we did better, at least). It wasn't that we refused modest goals. We just didn't know how to convert modest strategic goals into modest engineering goals. We didn't understand how difficult things actually were. We downright couldn't visualize simple engineering solutions and distinguish them from complex ones. We didn't think we were shortchanging anything; we thought it'd work. And we really didn't understand that whole 'incremental testing, fail early fail often' thing. This isn't the same as procrastination; it's just that we were 15 years old and we thought we were right.

Would making build season last until our first event have helped that? I guess some teams would spread out their mistakes and not catch any more. We checked and caught some of our blunders back in those days, though, and I suspect we'd've caught more as we went. I won't claim a proportional increase, but more. Would we have ended up relatively better as the entire league moved? I'm guessing not. But I'd probably have cried less. And would some more teams than do now get free time from RIs to do pre-event inspection, get other teams to visit and play with? I'd bet some would. All of them? No. But some more is better.

And the real crux for me is being out of bag between events. I see this potential all the time inspecting for districts. It's not that every team who's non-functional on the field has some big mechanical contraption they wasted all their time on. I've inspected a lot of very modest bots that just don't understand that whole good electrical practices thing. They don't assemble the kitbot right. They don't understand chain tensioning or basic mechanical construction. Maybe they want to be creative, even a little bit, and screw up that whole center of gravity issue. Maybe they tried for the low goal but couldn't visualize a simple solution. Should we as a league be able to fix this all in six weeks? Should they all have made mistakes that are fixable in 6 hours of unbag time? Or should we all be on our game enough to spare time for teams like this in six weeks instead of in the multiple weeks they spend staring at their robot in a bag? Okay, sure. But that's not their fault.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by Siri

Having been on this team as a student, I can say absolutely yes. We really weren't aiming too high, and we weren't procrastinating (any more than we do now). We just had no idea what we were doing. We had no reference for what too complicated or poor design was. We didn't shortchange our drivetrain; we just thought 2wd would be a good idea. We figured it out belatedly, but that regional was not so inspirational.
...
Should we as a league be able to fix this all in six weeks? Should they all have made mistakes that are fixable in 6 hours of unbag time? Or should we all be on our game enough to spare time for teams like this in six weeks instead of in the multiple weeks they spend staring at their robot in a bag? Okay, sure. But that's not their fault.

Hmmm, Not their fault? Agreed!

I don't think Adam or I intended "fault". There are lots of things I have the potential to do, and can't do yet; but not because it's my fault. Instead, it's because I haven't yet learned to do them. I would say the same applies to what you described.

Appreciating what you describe, and being fully sympathetic (I remember a robot lurching rather drunkenly around a field), in a thread on team sustainability, I made some suggestions that I think would apply almost as well to rookie teams as they would to struggling teams (maybe those two situations would get modestly different treatment?) (maybe the Rookie All-Star award would become the Sophomore All-Star award?).

If you care to review that other discussion, I would interested in your take on the ideas everyone floated there. I think the posts linked below cover the gist of what I eventually decided was my best idea at the time. Other people offered other good ideas.

The whole thread

I offered these, among other posts:
One, Two, Three, Four, and Five

Blake
PS: What I posted here is both a little off-topic, and a little on-topic. It's on-topic in the sense that a few ounces of pre-build preventative education that teaches important skills, and transfers a bit of wisdom, is worth a pound of post-build cure. Regardless of where any of us stand on the "hows" or "whys" of post-build bagging, that is no surprise to anyone.

[Siri]

Originally Posted by gblake

I don't think Adam or I intended "fault". There are lots of things I have the potential to do, and can't do yet; but not because it's my fault. Instead, it's because I haven't yet learned to do them. I would say the same applies to what you described.

Sorry if I implied you did. I wasn't even quoting you; I just intended to tie into the whole 'high horse' thing Adam had going.

Originally Posted by gblake

Appreciating what you describe, and being fully sympathetic (I remember a robot lurching rather drunkenly around a field), in a thread on team sustainability, I made some suggestions that I think would apply almost as well to rookie teams as they would to struggling teams (maybe those two situations would get modestly different treatment?) (maybe the Rookie All-Star award would become the Sophomore All-Star award?). <snipped links>

Ah yes, I remember this thread. I'm all for the concept of providing better year-round training and program alternatives. It doesn't change my stance on SBD. (In fact, if it succeeded in retraining the teams that do struggle with planning and time management, it would erase the last negative I have about dropping SBD.) In terms of the specifics of the system, there's a lot to work out there. For this thread, my relevant takeaway that we're in a reality where it's just not on FIRST's drawing board. This is an HQ that doesn't even have an official a VEX-like curriculum, much less this kind of system. That's not to say community organizations shouldn't--we should and do and will continue to--but effectively and efficiently reaching the teams who need it most takes an official change to the league. It's not even a setup I can imagine, putting on my 15-year-old student hat. And it's just not something FIRST is currently designed to do. I'd love it if they were, would like to help them if I can, and don't blame them that they aren't.

I think where we differ is that in my book, dropping SBD / using a Zondag proposal is a clear improvement to similar ends. It doesn't obviate or assist or do much of anything to a year-round system as well, but it helps complementarily and cleans clock on the 'currently realistically implementable' metric.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by Siri

...

I understand.
And, I worry about the camel's nose (the tail wagging the dog) pressing ever further into the tent.

HQ, and/or a team, or group of teams, that want(s) a World Championship Chairman's will create the curriculum and designs new/struggling teams need, or won't.

[Fusion_Clint]

Gblake,

After reading a ton of your posts and your signature line; curiosity has gotten the better of me and I have to ask: "Are you currently associated with a FRC team or event?"