Please read R17

[Paul Copioli]

Yes Joe, the rules are the rules, but if the rules get so ridiculous some of us may choose not to play anymore and that is the bigger shame.

I am extremely fed up with rules that WILL HURT ROBOT performance for many teams and the robots will not be attractive for people outside of FIRST. This is the last front that we, the FIRST community, are failing at ... miserably. We must do things to make the robots perform great right out of the shoot. A little bit of debug time not restricted by two five hour windows (why can't it be five 2 hour windows?) will not hurt anyone or anything.

Two five hour windows that have to be fit in before Friday is ridiculous for a team with mentors who work until 5 or 6 every night.

I have to tell you I will be very vocal about these arbitrary rules after the season is over.

-Paul

[Joe Johnson]

Originally Posted by Paul Copioli

Yes Joe, the rules are the rules, but if the rules get so ridiculous some of us may choose not to play anymore and that is the bigger shame.

I am extremely fed up with rules that WILL HURT ROBOT performance for many teams and the robots will not be attractive for people outside of FIRST. This is the last front that we, the FIRST community, are failing at ... miserably. We must do things to make the robots perform great right out of the shoot. A little bit of debug time not restricted by two five hour windows (why can't it be five 2 hour windows?) will not hurt anyone or anything.

Two five hour windows that have to be fit in before Friday is ridiculous for a team with mentors who work until 5 or 6 every night.

I have to tell you I will be very vocal about these arbitrary rules after the season is over.

-Paul

Paul,

I agree with you on many things.

I especially agree that Spectator Friendliness has been a significant weaknesse of past FIRST competitions and that Spectator Friendliness is one of the main keys to FIRST accomplishing its goals.

In some respects, I believe FIRST has given up this idea.

I think at one time, the vision was that we only needed FIRST teams to survive on their own for a few more years because eventually the NCRA (National Competitive Robotics Association) would fund March Madness out of the TV proceeds much like NCAA Basketball teams live off TV funding.

But... ...for good or ill, FIRST has decided that it is in it for the long haul.

To that end, they are trying to listen to sponsors and participants that tell them that they are being killed by escallating costs due to the expanding season, duplicate robots, rules that turn the 6 week build time into 4 months and so on.

The rules are trying to address that. We can talk about what it means to teams and to the game play etc. but I think they are trying to address an important issue.

We all have ideas as to how to improve the system. I think that FIRST has shown itself to be a responsive organization (responsive does not mean perfect).

In the mean time, I am hopeful for an exciting, spectator friendly game this year.

Joe J.


P.S. I am not an insider with respect to FIRST. I have had no conversations about this topic with official or semi-official FIRST folk. I am just using my eyes and ears and brain to form opinions. The above message assigns motiviations to FIRST as though I was a fly on the wall at meetings where this topic was discussed. This is certainly not the case. JJ

[Stuart]

you know I really dont see why they are so . . glah about this. . . well on the programing front any way. if youve shipped your bot youve shipped your control board and any code you do generate is untested and therefore worthless.

but I do see the reason for the 10 hour thing when it comes to mechanical parts(teams in the latter regionals could completely redesign their robots in 4 weeks).

ohh well the rules cant be perfect, and its the only real way to deal with the fact of staggered regionals with out staggered kickoffs.

an on the subject of spectator friendliness, the real trick to this is game design . . . having a robot play basketball is very spectator friendly(better than picking out cans by a human controlled see saw). while yes many of the teams will not be as good as others there will always be enough to make a spectator who knows nothing about robotics go "OMG thats cool what those high schoolers can do."

[meaubry]

Paul is correct, and I find it ironic that if FIRST were that concerned about everyone putting down their tools and relaxing after 6 weeks of intensive designing, building, programming, testing, altering, modifying, practicing, and shipping - that they would have allowed the teams to decide when they could best fit the total of 10 hours of fix it time into their schedules.
This way is gonna be way more of a burden than if they had simple said "you get 10 hours total, between this time on this day and this time on that day - now go divide it up the best way it fits your teams use of the time".
After all, it is truly up to the honesty of each team to abide - and we will abide, but this doesn't help a thing as far as I can see.

What next? No prototyping ideas in the off season? everyone put down your tools after the main event in Atlanta? The real giant leaps occur when teams are allowed to continue making robots that work - and when teams are gracious enough to share the concepts/designs and even more improvement is made.

Robot games with robots that don't work - just aren't appealing to most people. If this is to level the playing field it will NEVER be a reality.

Just my 2 cents for what its worth

[gail]

Whether or not a rule makes sense does matter. A rule with a high likelihood of being broken needs to be examined from a few perspectives:
1. What was the intent of the rule
2. Does it achieve its intended purpose
3. Might there be a better way to accomplish the same goal

Intent of the rule
With respect to the fix it window rule, I can only surmise the intent was to:
1. Create a finite period of work for teams and corporate mentors
2. Put teams "with" and "without" abundant resources on equal footing
3. Not give teams playing their first competition later in the season a longer time to get ready

Does the rule achieve this?

Creating a finite period of commitment
As FIRST is a mentoring program, FIRST anticipated they would have to have to ask corporations to lend their engineers/technicians to teams. They also anticipated having to answer the question "How much time are you asking for?" In an effort to entice rather than scare away potential mentors, FIRST believed by imposing a ship date and then limiting work time beyond the ship date, it increased the chance of finding and keeping mentors to work with teams. Did it work?

I think the answer is no. It did limit the time they can work, but not without putting an undue burden on the mentors who must now eat, sleep and breathe FIRST during this finite period to get the robot done. It is not uncommon for team members, mentors included, to literally give up their families, friends and school during the 6 week build period. If we are honest with those we solicit for help, it certainly doesn't make selling participation any easier. And if we are not honest about the sacrifice they must make, we set the teams up for hardship when the mentors seldom come. The finite period also creates a situation where time is so short, mentors must hijack the project to finish on time, leaving everyone else to watch. This problem is magnified when you consider the mentor feels a responsibility to the corporate sponsor to produce a robot the company will be proud of.

Another point to consider is whether we have undermined our efforts for longevity of teams by putting too much pressure on them to finish within a finite period. The mentor (and even the student) who has sacrificed everything during the FIRST season, may not have the support of his family, friends and school administration next year or two years down the road when he/she chooses to participate again.


Leveling the field based on differences in resources:
Does providing a fix-it window close the gap between the teams with and without abundant resources? It seems to me teams with the most resources (manpower, money and access to machines and engineers) have a far better chance of finishing their robot during the six weeks and accomplishing what is needed during the fix-it window. Therefore the rule actually increases the disparity between the teams with and without abundant resources.

If it takes some teams longer than others to produce a great result, why should FIRST or any other team care? Think of it this way: If it takes one person 20 hours of studying to get an A, but it takes another only 5, should everyone have to stop at 5? Don't we want to teach that you have to work hard to compensate for your weaknesses, not give in to them? The time is there, why not let teams decide how they want to use it? The benefit to FIRST is that the competitions should be more exciting and inspirational when all the robots function better.

Leveling the field based on when you play first event
This argument can cut either way. There are many factors teams consider in choosing which event to play in. Travel budget is one. Level of competition is another. The fix-it window cannot compensate for all of these factors. For instance, everyone knows competition on the field is the lowest at the beginning of the season. You could argue teams playing early that have mega resources which allow them to finish in plenty of time to test, are at a distinct advantage and have a far greater chance of winning earlier. The fix-it window actually helps them by limiting how ready their opponents will be. Similarly, those playing later for the first time will be up against repeat players who have already had the chance to learn what needs to be fixed, what strategies work better, etc.. Either way, teams have to weigh the advantages of playing early or late and decide this for themselves. The fix-it window won't eliminate these factors

Additional factors
Not only does FIRST dictate how many hours you can spend, but also when those hours may occur. Teams are tired after ship date, and equally tired after competitions. Often students and mentors have let other things in their lives slide and need to concentrate on getting those things back on track. Students need to catch up on missed school work, mentors need to catch up on work. Additionally, after a competition, it is often the case that parts need to be ordered and received before a replacement, spare or improvement can be fabricated. Telling us when we can work just doesn't make sense

A Better Way
FIRST should continue to level the playing field by limiting parts, motors, weight, size and overall costs allowed on the robot, but not on how hard teams can work. Let teams decide this for themselves.

I am a proponent of allowing teams to work as many hours as they choose, on whatever days they choose, to accomplish whatever they as a team choose to accomplish. I love to see robots evolve over the course of the season, even if that evolution is the result of imitating a concept from another team. This is how it is in the real world. This is what sharing info is all about. This should be what FIRST is about.

[irishninja]

Originally Posted by gail

A Better Way
FIRST should continue to level the playing field by limiting parts, motors, weight, size and overall costs allowed on the robot, but not on how hard teams can work. Let teams decide this for themselves.

I completely agree. Isn't the point that we work hard? Woodie Flowers mentioned at kickoff that he gave us a time frame too small, team too big, etc. Time frame too small is right. My team just barely finished our robot. We didn't have time to create spare parts. I agree that we shouldn't be able to create new parts, or completely redesign the robot, but, especially with this year, there will be A LOT of colliding, and new parts will be needed. Ten hours isn't very much time, especially for temas with limited machine shops.

I know at the NY regional, one team has their machine shop two blocks from the competition area, but what about teams from CT and the surrounding area? How can they get replacement parts?

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by meaubry

Paul is correct, and I find it ironic that if FIRST were that concerned about everyone putting down their tools and relaxing after 6 weeks of intensive designing, building, programming, testing, altering, modifying, practicing, and shipping - that they would have allowed the teams to decide when they could best fit the total of 10 hours of fix it time into their schedules.

With this I agree. After the build season, nobody wants to do ANYthing for a few days, and so we did not do much of anything during the fix-it window. Trenton regional is this week, so we'll be making shields and drilling out sprockets Thursday - hopefully there will be someone kind enough to loan us the use of a drill press, and maybe a lathe. Not to mention that the mentors all work for a living, so spending just one more night from 5:30 to 10:30 is right out of the question.

I'd rather see "OK, you have 10 hours total between now and the regional, use them wisely."

Don

[Damian Manda]

I understand that this rule is partially intended to level the playing field, but I think that certain teams will always have an advantage (due to financial or machining resources) that will not be able to be restricted. Instead, rules like this penalize the rookie teams that may need more time just to get to the level that a more advanced team can within the 6 weeks.

My main complaint about R17 is from the standpoint of programming. While I understand that there are often constraints on mechanical development in business situations, the software development often continues. Firmware updates correct major issues in electronics (I know my current PDA would be useless if not for post manufacture updates), operating systems and computer software are patched constantly due to new discoveries and games are updated to ensure stability and compatibility. Last year FIRST said that it was OK to fix problems in the code as long as the changes were retyped at a competition. Now there is the ruling below:

There are no restrictions on developing practice code for practice robots. However, if even one line of the code is developed after the primary robot has shippped and outside of the Fix-It-Window, then none of the code may be used on the competition robot.

This seems unreasonable to me due to the fact that any code that is necessary to run a second robot (which we have for driver practice) would have to be duplicated on the competition one. Therefore, I understand this rule to say that no improvements could ever be used on the main robot. If I were to develop a better autonomous or shooter control, I could not in any way use this in competition, as a recreated code would surely use the same structure and statements. This ruling discourages improvement and makes me reluctant to change any code to better the control of our practice robot, because if I did anything more than think about it, it could not be used. Then, I probably will not have enough time to debug at the competition, or remember what needed to be implemented.

This total restriction therefore does not make sense if FIRST would like to see the best robots possible from all teams, because code is one area where all teams should be somewhat equal. We can all retain the control system and work with something to refine our code. This ruling only gives an advantage to those teams who had the ability to finish their robots more than a day before ship. While I will follow this and not continue coding, I believe FIRST should rethink this restriction in the spirit of innovation and gracious professionalism to the less privileged teams.

Just my opinion from a member of a team who has gone from building one robot to two during my participation. I have experience both ways, and believe banning after-ship coding only hurts both types of teams.

[seanwitte]

Originally Posted by meaubry

Robot games with robots that don't work - just aren't appealing to most people. If this is to level the playing field it will NEVER be a reality.

This may seem crazy, but maybe they think that you should finish the robot during the build. Not 75%, but ready to rock out of the crate.

[Tom Bottiglieri]

Originally Posted by seanwitte

This may seem crazy, but maybe they think that you should finish the robot during the build. Not 75%, but ready to rock out of the crate.

I believe that is the premise of the rule. In theory, that would fix all of the problems FIRST has with boring matched by forcing teams to do all essential robot work before the build. But as you know, things get hectic, and as with any project, schedules fall behind, and the final details often get forgotten.

[Paul Copioli]

Bottom line is that 6 weeks is not enough. It never has been enough. Now, with this year's rules you needed to be done in four weeks compared to six weeks in previous years.

[JVN]

Originally Posted by Paul Copioli

Bottom line is that 6 weeks is not enough. It never has been enough. Now, with this year's rules you needed to be done in four weeks compared to six weeks in previous years.

Maybe that's the point.
You need to be DONE in 6 weeks; then back to your kids and job.

It seems like FIRST is making a statement saying "Dragging this out into a 12 week process, is not what we intend to happen. 6 weeks, means 6 weeks."

Like Joe, I don't want to put words in FIRST's mouth, but this seems to me to be a pretty clear attempt to force engineers in FIRST to NOT work on FIRST. "Ok, robots have shipped, go do real work and wait for regionals."

I'm not saying I agree (in fact, I don't), but this could be a direction the powers-that-be want us to take.

-JV

[meaubry]

I also want to point out that over the past 11 years of doing FIRST - I have had some of the very best experiences while helping teams that were 75% or less completed and far from "ready to rock out of the crate".

I seriously do not think that this "fix it window" rule is to assure everyone finishes their robot during the build, but then again, I have been known to be wrong before.

My point was that robots that don't move are boring to watch - almost painful and if the team cannot schedule 2 - 5 hour long work sessions to make/repair replacement parts or debug programs - the overall level of FIRST participation doesn't get any better. If a team can only schedule the group for 2 - 4 hour sessions, 20% of the opportunity to improve things is wasted.

With Engineers and Mentors working during the day, 2 full evenings (5:30 to 10:30pm) now need to be scheduled instead of being able to spread that 10 hours out and find a balance between, work, FIRST, and seeing the family. This puts me in a tough spot -
a) Honey, I know we finished the build, but theres alot of things that still need to get done and we can ONLY get them done in these 2 - 5 hour windows
b) Team, I can't make this schedule so we'll just do what we can and we'll get done what we can get done, let me see when the other coaches can be here and if the school is open that late
c) What fixit window(s)? - if on one knows, no one gets upset

If they wanted the project completed in 6 weeks - than JUST SAY IT - the fix it window rule allows teams to extend the build cycle for repair and replacement parts - as well as, and more importantly - for programming/debugging. Giving control to the teams for when the 10 hours is to be scheduled, isn't gonna hurt anyone.

[seanwitte]

The bottom line is this: they GAVE teams a working robot chassis that can be built by the end of the day of the kickoff presentation. They GAVE teams code that can find and track the target. You now have 6 weeks to build something that can pick up and throw the balls. Teams that build a functional robot in six weeks should not be penalized by allowing other teams to keep working after the ship date. Of course you could build a better robot in 8 weeks, but you only have six. Thats the point. If that means you need two weeks to practice then the build season is four.

[Nuttyman54]

just a fewthings to say:

Everyone here seems to be focussing on the fix-it window IMMEDIATELY after ship. there are duplicate windows following each regional competition per <R20>.

that said
1) I agree with everyone who thinks the first fix-it window should be more flexible than just two 5-hour work periods. Alternatively, give teams a break and move the post-ship fix-it window to the two days immediately preceding the first regional event.

2) I see no reason that they have to limit programming to that period alone. Why not let teams experiment with new controls (ie. steering wheels)? As it is, teams attending multiple regionals have MORE programming time than everyone else. I know our programmers would KILL for more time, because they know they're not going to get very much at the events.

3) If a team gets their spare parts made by a machine shop, does that shop have to complete the parts within the fix-it window?