Purchase/Prebuild - What's the difference?

[Andy Baker]

Originally Posted by Marc P.

I'll second John's comments about the great discussion in this thread.

I totally agree. This is a great discussion.

Originally Posted by Marc P.

...While it looks like this type of company would fit within the guidlines of the written rules, wouldn't it require a clear seperation between the company personell and a certain team? As a seperate corporate/company entity, the transmissions can be manufactured any time during the year. If there is a team association, the company may be viewed as part of the team, and thus manufacturing would be restricted to the 6 week build period. ... FIRST has volunteers sign conflict of interest papers for positions which can directly affect competition, so I'd hope the same would be true of any parts provider.

So, proceeding with this logic, if there is an engineer from Fastenal who helps with team 5555, then team 5555 cannot use Fastenal screws on their robot. I don't agree with this logic.

Team 5555 should be able to use Fastenal screws on their robot if they are standard, off-the-shelf screws. Now, if Fastenal made custom screws that were not available to the open market (president of Uganda, team 15XX, yada yada), then those screws should only be allowed on team 5555's robot if Fastenal made those custom screws during the build season.

Originally Posted by Marc P.

The other question is in terms of a guarantee/warranty, and liability. With Innovation First, they have reps at every official event, such that in case of any problems or equipment failures, technical advice and spare parts are provided as the need arises. With these transmissions, would they be sold "as is", in that any problems encountered are the responsibility of the teams themselves, or would they come with a warranty in the unlikely event something fails, breaks, bends, shatters/otherwise falls apart. If something does fail in a big shoving match, would the company be held liable for the loss?

Innovation First has a well-deserved monopoly in FIRST. Each team's kit has IFI hardware included. This is not the same as AndyMark components. While we will have some sort of minimal warranty, we cannot afford to replace every component if it breaks under an extreme load. If we were to design to this extreme restriction, then the products will be 5x the price that they need to be in order to be affordable by teams. Currently, the gearbox is designed for a 4x safety factor over the stall torques of two powerful kit motors (from 2004 kit).

Again, I will use the Fastenal comparison. If a Fastenal screw breaks during a FIRST competition, is Fastenal held liable for the loss? Absolutely not. The difference here between IFI and Fastenal is that teams have the option to not put Fastenal screws on their robots. If they think that Fastenal screws are not good (which is wrong, Fastenal is a great company with great products), then it is that team's choice to not use their product.

In the end, if our products are crap, then people will not buy them. This is the risk of doing business, and the foundation of capitalism.

Andy B.

[Marc P.]

Originally Posted by Andy Baker

So, proceeding with this logic, if there is an engineer from Fastenal who helps with team 5555, then team 5555 cannot use Fastenal screws on their robot. This seems silly to me, therefore I think that the above logic is flawed.

Team 5555 should be able to use Fastenal screws on their robot if they are standard, off-the-shelf screws. Now, if Fastenal made custom screws that were not available to the open market (president of Uganda, team 15XX, yada yada), then those screws should only be allowed on team 5555's robot if Fastenal made those custom screws during the build season.

I completely agree. To clarify my point a bit, I meant if team 5555 used the Fastenal screws, I would expect them to list it in their bill of materials at the same price other teams can get them for. Because the engineer works for Fastenal, even though he has the ability to donate screws to the team, they would still have to count against the $3500 limit. That's all I meant to say there. The conflict of interest argument was more a general statement on ethics than anything specific to the AndyMark company. As an example, if an Innovation First engineer worked with a team, and knew the internals of the IFI controllers in and out, and knew of any hidden/undocumented features which could give his team and advantage, I'd hope he'd either not use his company knowledge for an unfair advantage, or publish the information (which IFI may not like) so everyone can use it. I'd have to say that sort of situation isn't possible with a transmission like yours, so I'd say that's a moot point.

Innovation First has a well-deserved monopoly in FIRST. Each team's kit has IFI hardware included. This is not the same as AndyMark components. While we will have some sort of minimal warranty, we cannot afford to replace every component if it breaks under an extreme load. If we were to design to this extreme restriction, then the products will be 5x the price that they need to be in order to be affordable by teams. Currently, the gearbox is designed for a 4x safety factor over the stall torques.

That makes sense, and it's good to know the safety factor. Are the specifications for the transmission avaliable?

Again, I will use the Fastenal comparison. If a Fastenal screw breaks during a FIRST competition, is Fastenal held liable for the loss? Absolutely not. The difference here between IFI and Fastenal is that teams have the option to not put Fastenal screws on their robots. If they think that Fastenal screws are not good (which is wrong, Fastenal is a great company with great products), then it is that team's choice to not use their product.

In the end, if our products are crap, then people will not buy them. This is the risk of doing business, and the foundation of capitalism.

Andy B.

Again, that makes sense. Of course Fastenal wouldn't be held liable for the loss of the match. I'm a bit tired, so my thoughts aren't coming out as fluid as I'd like them to. I think what I meant was the breakage of the components. If a screw breaks, it's no big deal to replace it. If a gear breaks or a shaft snaps, that can be a big production to replace, especially if the team doesn't have the capability to forge a new shaft or obtain a new gear. I guess the question is, would you have replacement parts available on request?

Thanks for the answers! This is turning into one of the best discussions I've seen around here in a while!

[Andy Baker]

Originally Posted by Marc P.

I completely agree. To clarify my point a bit, I meant if team 5555 used the Fastenal screws, I would expect them to list it in their bill of materials at the same price other teams can get them for. Because the engineer works for Fastenal, even though he has the ability to donate screws to the team, they would still have to count against the $3500 limit. That's all I meant to say there. ...

Are the specifications for the transmission avaliable?

...

I guess the question is, would you have replacement parts available on request?

Your point about costing the standard parts on the team's BOM is great. If team 45 uses AndyMark components, they will be noted at cost in the BOM.

We are working on specifications and prices. Within two weeks (the end of August) we plan to have this information on our webpage.

As for replacement parts, we will have them available to order on the website. We will do our best to create a fair warranty plan.

Andy B.

[Steve W]

I am out of line and will not have the thread closed. I do find it difficult to sit back and not input more. I will however bow to the wishes of others.

As for the KOP transmissions, ask how many needed replacement at the events. Teams were blowing them during practice rounds.

What I have understood, and may be wrong, is that people would rather that the playing field be more on the level side rather than teams "learn" their way up the ladder. The team I am on in 2003 built their first 3 motor shifting transmission. It took forever to get the parts from PIC and so we did not have much time to complete. With less than a week till ship we had to totally redo and build a gearbox instead. That put us at a big disadvantage for the first regional. I have to admit that it became the year that we won our first regional but we barely made it through. This year we redesigned (thanks Tristan) and again had problems getting parts. After blowing out the aluminum gears and copper gears we finally got our final gears the day before ship. The robot was finally moving at about 3 am of ship day. Not much time for practice.

Now I am not a gearbox or transmission expert but I believe that we could not order parts until we knew the motors and specs. I also know that the gears were very expensive. Now if a transmission is designed and built before season starts, would the builders not have to know what motors and what specs that they were? Would the price not be excessive unless shipped as piece parts and not assembled as one item. Even as a kit that contained all of the parts the single price , I would think, would be high. I ramble on unable to put my thoughts into words so I will stop for now. I apologize for my outbursts but my passion clouds my eyes sometimes (and my brain).

Please, let the discussions continue.

[Eric O]

OK..I have tried to read all of the above, but will admit to just skimming some for key words. And I agree that this is a good topic to bring up now before it becomes an issue, however I see one simple clarification that could be made to the rule:

There is a quantitative difference between pre-built and purchased. Purchased means that the product has been designed, manufactured and built by a Company as opposed to some other person/team/organization that wants to sell off robot parts. Correct me if I am wrong, but there is government (yes, I used that word ) paperwork which defines a company which then translates into taxes and what not. Also, if an organization becomes a company, they must pay wages to workers. And if anyone has ever added the hours it takes to build a robot and multiplied it by minimum wage....its not cheap.

It seems to me that if FIRST wanted to (or sadly needed to) clarify the rule they could say something along those lines to help them define "purchased". In this case pre-built would be anything a team made or purchased from someone other than a company before kickoff.

Eric

[Andrew]

Some other random thoughts on this subject....

Predesigning has been OK for my time in FIRST. Most teams design and prototype critical components. If FIRST changes KoP parts (like they did with the Chiphua output shaft in 2003 and the new drill motor in 2003), we have to scramble to redesign. It's a risk to invest design time up front, but generally it pays off. Since most teams are pretty free about sharing information with other teams, this seems to be a good thing all around.

CNC programming and fixtures...Under last year's rules, it would be OK for a team to come up with a design, program and debug a CNC machine and make whatever fixtures are necessary. When build phase hits (assuming no major KoP changes), the program can be dumped into the CNC machine and parts can be banged out automatically at much lower machining time.

Design for Manufacturing...designing both for function and to make it easier to manufacture takes the art of design to the next level. If you accomplish this in the off season, you can reduce the number and complexity of parts that you must make.

Competitiveness...designing and prototyping in the off season builds a team's knowledge base, which is ultimately what makes a team more competitive. Fabrication resources, OTS parts, etc. are available if you need them.

There are even other ways to save fabrication time during build phase...making fixtures in the off season, buying materials which are precut to length, designing around OTS material sizes to save cuts, ...

Whatever the rules, mature teams are going to find ways to improve their design efficiency based on knowledge of competitions past.

Finally, SLEEP...the reason that most of us spend time in the off-season getting a jump on next season is so that we can have more sleep time and more family time during build phase.

[Ken Patton]

This has been a great discussion. I admit that I have never been a fan of replacing "creativity" with "plug-and-play someone elses idea" but the discussion has helped me to understand that the buy-a-transmission route is not necessarily something that will hurt creativity. So I'm more positive on the idea than ever before, and I'll quit grumbling to myself now...

Karthik's comments on this topic and Andy's capitalism comment hit home for me. Thanks guys.

I hope FIRST will make sure their rules and team guidance capture this sort of evolution of the game. It should be clear to every team (even to those who don't have CD addicts) what is available, how to best obtain the hardware, and how it is to be accounted for within the rules.

Maybe something on the FIRST website that includes "non-FIRST systems that you can buy for your FIRST robot."

As far as people from AndyMark helping specific teams, I say have at it. I'm expecting them to SPONSOR a team in the 2007 season .

Ken

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by Ken Patton

As far as people from AndyMark helping specific teams, I say have at it. I'm expecting them to SPONSOR a team in the 2007 season .

Ahem. 2006!!

-dave