What was there before AndyMark?

[fox46]

Ahh- the dark ages... I remember installing servos to drill gearboxes and boasting about having "two speed" transmissions! Back then you really had to be innovative in your designs to even make things work. Taking a motor spinning at 20kRPM and somehow getting it down to a speed and torque that could be used was often the pinnacle of your machine's design, especially if your team was short on mentors. My rookie year doing FIRST I remember our team U-bolted drill motors to our frame and used chains to drive our wheels- we had no idea what "side load" meant and paid the price throwing chains every match

Things are much easier now. With just a little money you can log onto VEX or AM, find what you need in the gear ratio of your choice and in a couple days you've got a mechanism running. Sometimes I really do think things are too easy these days. The sort of problem solving and creative thought that used to go into designing a gearbox for a mechanism is somewhat lost.

Any Canadians on here remember Canada First? (Canadian spinoff of FIRST before they crossed the border)

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by fox46

Any Canadians on here remember Canada First? (Canadian spinoff of FIRST before they crossed the border)

I remember hearing about it, often in a negative light. 188 spent a few years in that competition before becoming the first FRC team in Canada in 1998. (See here for details.)

On the bright side, test-driving Woburn's 1997 robot was a major factor in getting me to join the team.

[fox46]

I remember hearing about it, often in a negative light.

Yup, "negative" would be accurate- that thread pretty much covers all the bases. I don't believe they were affiliated with FIRST at all. Unfortunately for Canadian teams who couldn't afford to travel to the states, it was all there was back then and although it wasn't nearly as well-run or set up as FIRST, it did serve to inspire and motivate many youth in its day.

[JamesCH95]

At first, there was nothing.

And then Andy said: let there be decent COTS parts for FIRST!

[Old Guy]

Small Parts Catalog from 1996 with the winning robot from Ramp N Roll.
Some day I will tell you how this machine was involved in the creation of the term "Gracious Professionalism"

[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

Now back to the modern day, what I can't figure out, is you can essentially buy a very competitive robot, with the right combination of parts, but a very large percentage of teams still produce very poor robots, many of which are incapable of assisting their alliance or scoring any points at all. What gives?

Spend some time around a rookie team with no money or mentors, and it will cease to be a mystery. Honestly, I think a lot of people here would do well to expand their horizons in that way - at best, the "I can't understand how people can do badly at FIRST" culture is unproductive, and at worst it serves to drive people away from this community who stand to benefit from it most.

Moreover, you can't buy entire manipulators, you can't buy any of it pre-assembled, you can't buy the knowledge to make the whole system work; there's always going to be some amount of design and machining involved, no matter how COTS-oriented your design process is. Step back for a second and think about the amount of institutionalized knowledge that goes into putting a working robot on a FRC field; imagine stripping all that away, and starting from scratch. The reality for many FRC teams is that they have a collection of students who have never done any engineering, teachers who have never built robots, and no clear idea of what they're getting into. They often also have extremely limited budgets, and likely could not afford a completely COTS robot (have you looked at VexPro's prices?) even if they had the know-how to put one together. Does it seem so mysterious now?

[Monochron]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

Now back to the modern day, what I can't figure out, is you can essentially buy a very competitive robot, with the right combination of parts, but a very large percentage of teams still produce very poor robots, many of which are incapable of assisting their alliance or scoring any points at all. What gives?

buy

What gives?

That's what gives. Every team can't just buy a very competitive robot, only some can.

I am assuming you are being sarcastic here, but either way, it is kind of offensive.

[Alan Anderson]

My son joined the TechnoKats in 2003. From my point of view, there was never a time before AndyMark.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Monochron

That's what gives. Every team can't just buy a very competitive robot, only some can.

I am assuming you are being sarcastic here, but either way, it is kind of offensive.

This assertion that a "competitive" robot somehow costs thousands of dollars is, frankly, ridiculous.

You get a drivebase in the KoP which is covered by a cost you HAVE to pay, total cost, $0. This year alone that will give you at least 11 points in auton. Yet I consistently see teams not earning even that. Heck, strap a chair on top and it's a viable inbounder. Not the most glamorous role but certainly needed and a hot commodity. Total cost, $40 if you buy a REALLY nice chair.

Look at 558 for an example of simple, mostly COTS bot that doesn't cost a ton.

[Joe G.]

Up until shortly before Andymark started (2003 I believe,) FRC was much more closed off in terms of allowed materials. Teams were given a budget from smallparts.com, rather than the blanket $4k budget of today. As a result, teams were much more reliant on mechanical components of the kit of parts than they are today. Even so, there was little/nothing special built for FRC. The "kit transmissions" were retrofitted drill transmissions, for example. If you wanted shifting transmissions or anything of that nature, you built it yourself.

[Duncan Macdonald]

It was before my time as well. From what I understand part of the reason CD grew was because people were coming here to exchange ideas, photos and design techniques. Papers like this were made and teams survived with the COTS parts they could find. There were no FIRST dedicated vendors and the robots were generally simpler.

[dtengineering]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

And somehow we still got the 2007 KOP transmissions...



(They were from BB)

The 07 KOP transmissions were great gearboxes, save for a manufacturing defect. The carrier plates were not properly heat treated. Once the problem was identified, banebots went above and beyond to provide teams with replacement carrier plates in time for the first week of regionals.



I don't know how much it cost banebots to solve that problem, but the experience left me with a very high impression of the commitment to customers. Anyone can run into a manufacturing glitch when scaling up production. Banebots set a great example of how to deal with it.



I stumbled upon our old Bosch drill motors from our 04 drivetrain the other day. It reminded me to be amazed by how the FRC COTS industry has grown over the past decade.



Jason

[KevinG]

I participated in FIRST way back from 1999 to 2001, then went off to college and became an engineer. Last year I came back. Wow. What a difference.

When I participated teams lived or died based on their chassis. I was lucky enough to be part of a team that could get something welded from a sponsor, other teams had to make do with wood or even fiberglass. The "best" teams had 80/20 chassis that let them do whatever they wanted. Drive trains where the other killer. Everything else was secondary to making sure your chassis and drive train were solid. These days you get that in the box.

SmallParts was king. The robots were far more mechanical-focused back then, with no autonomous period. The best motors were drill motors and the van door motor, and teams had to be cautioned against using set screws because they inevitably slipped. Keyways were a rarity since the motors themselves weren't keyed. The idea of buying a gearbox pre-made for everything was completely alien.

Are things better than they were before? Yes and no. I think something is lost when you can literally buy an entire robot and spend a few days assembling everything. But that's offset by the fact that raising the floor also raises the ceiling. Instead of starting with nothing teams can start with a kit bot, and IMO that offers a lot of possibility. We're a much more technologically advanced community now, with programming and automation taking a bigger role than before. The barrier to entry is far lower, and anything that exposes more students to FRC is a good thing.

[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by KGenson

I think something is lost when you can literally buy an entire robot and spend a few days assembling everything.

I don't know where people are getting this, unless by "entire robot" they mean "something that drives" and not much else.

Not that "something that drives" can't be an extremely productive part of an alliance, of course, but it certainly doesn't trivialize FRC (or even come close).

[KevinG]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

I don't know where people are getting this, unless by "entire robot" they mean "something that drives" and not much else.

Not that "something that drives" can't be an extremely productive part of an alliance, of course, but it certainly doesn't trivialize FRC (or even come close).

Yes, that's an entire robot. It has a chassis, drive train, can pass inspection, and play in the competition. And nowhere in my post did I say that doing so "trivializes" FRC, particularly since in the very next sentence I talk about how having the fundamentals of a robot provided in the kit are a good thing since raising the floor also raises the ceiling. My team particularly benefits from the KOP. We don't have a lot of equipment, mostly hand power tools, so being able to start with the chassis is ideal for us.