Should teams be pushed to make higher quality robots?

[Steve W]

After reading this whole thread twice I have decided to put 2cents in.

Pretty robots, who cares? Quality robots are another matter.

I believe that some that have posted do not really understand all that goes on with different FIRST teams. There are a lot of teams that ship their robots not even built. With the restrictions that they have placed on them there is a real pressure to finish. There are teams that work out of basements and garages. There are teams with full shops, engineers, craftsmen, professionals at their disposal. We MUST NOT look down on others and expect them all to have the same amount of resources, dedication and time as we do.

The team that I joined met a t a mentors house and we worked in the garage and basement. They were able to find someone with a mill to do some of our work. Everything else was done in the garage. As the team gained experience the robot gained quality. We still don't have the prettiest robot around but we do take pride in our quality.

That said their are teams that just don't know how to do something properly. I was at an event 2 years ago and was doing some inspecting. One team just didn't have their pneumatics up to snuff. If you looked at it, it was like a rats nest. I stopped my inspecting and went back to that team. We spent a few hours going over everything so that they could pass inspect. I was also able to give pointers on "Good Housekeeping" on the robot. Gave reasons on why we should have neat wiring and pneumatics. The next year this team had really improved with the wiring and layout.

Sometimes we have to put ourselves into the other teams scenario. When I talked to the mentors of the above team I found out why. The team was designed as a student team. There were mostly new students. Mentors were new or not knowledgeable on some of the robot. There were financial issues. BUT the team did show, worked hard on their robot and made it to the elim rounds. They were happy, inspired and improved when they left. The next year I saw them with another team showing them the lessons that they were taught.

FIRST is a learning, growing and inspiring organization. We can never dictate pretty. We can however encourage and teach quality.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Of course we push teams to make better quality robots. That's why there are inspections. That's why we answer questions for whoever visits our pits. It is why we proudly post pictures of assemblies and robots. But more importantly, a quality robot in my mind, is one who accomplishes the tasks and keeps working match after match. It is a robot that is efficient in design, elegant in it's use of the parts provided, and just plain cool to see. To paraphase a famous judge, Quality is not something I can really define, but I know it when I see it.