[moderated] pic: The 2006 NiagaraFIRST Triplets!

[doubleslash]

Originally Posted by neilsonster

Come to a regional in which the NiagaraFIRST teams participate, and then give some more thought to this matter. If you saw the three of them last year you would know that despite the fact that they had identical robots, they were three clearly different teams. They all had their own style of play, and as an alliance leader thats how you would perceive them.

I think that the fundamental misunderstanding between me and other people here is in our view of collaborating teams. Whereas you and others here might view collaborating teams as three teams with the same robot, I see them as one big team with three robots.

In this way, your post parallels Don Swando's above post, where he says that teams are selected on a basis of merit during the alliance selection process, and also that it doesn't matter if the robots win unless they're all at the same regional. But if you change your view of collaborating teams as one big team with multiple robots, instead of multiple teams with the same robot, you'll see that this is wrong. Even if all three teams are selected in the selection process on a basis of merit, there are still three of them, meaning two other teams who tried just as hard couldn't get selected. Even if not all three robots go to the same regional, they're still in the same competition, meaning that the distribution of robots amongst regionals is only a difference of tripling your chances of success at one regional or enjoying an equal amount of success at three regionals.

In the same way, I'd still have to say that despite your post, collaboration is still unfair. Your statement that the three are "clearly different teams" with "their own style of play" doesn't change the fact that there are three of them. What, then, is to stop a team from bringing two or three of their robot to the regional, and asking them to all be put into the competition, as long as they promise to play each one differently?

This is where I derived my statement "One team, one robot, one competition," because I think that collaboration tests the boundaries of the definition of "team." I think it should be recognized that "team" is very abstract, and that it would be reasonable to consider the Triplets as one "team" who should therefore only introduce one robot into the competition. In my first post, I described a basic way for FIRST to formalize this.

Anyway, I heard that the Triplets did very well. I'd like to use this opportunity to say that I don't question that collaboration as a professional process, that it won't produce stronger robots, nor will I parade the statement that collaboration is ruining FIRST by stifling creativity, or whatever. What I'm trying to say is that there is a fairness problem inherent to collaboration because it takes advantage of a shady definition of "team." My problem isn't that collaborating teams are being selected for eliminations or winning regionals and awards, my problem is that other teams are not.