COTS: How far should it go?

[adciv]

One of the mentors on my team complains about having access to a machine shop & CNC machinery. One day I may ask him if he expects us to wind our own motors or smelt our own copper.

Once you're in industry, you're expected to look at what is out there first before designing something from scratch. You are not (usually) being payed to reinvent the wheel. If it already exists and meets the requirements, it's typically cheaper to use than invent yourself.

I think the COTS items help create a more level playing field. Several of you are now asking "How does that work". Where it helps is for those teams who don't have access to full machine shops and water jets. Being able to purchase premade components off the shelf helps level the playing field with those teams. It's a matter of tradeoffs and picking your battles.

[philso]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Our goal is inspiration. Therefore our goal is to make sure that teams are at least reliably capable of achieving the game challenge.

Inspiration does not mean that a team has to win a regional. It does mean they have to be able to demonstrate to the world that they can do something, score a small percentage of the goals in a match. It means the team has something that can be built on. It means that they have hope of improving themselves.

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

You ever worked with a team that consistently failed to build a competitive robot? Seen the type of beating that losing constantly and missing eliminations brings? Ever tried to bring people up from that?

Winning feels good, it's inspiring. Going out and going 0-12 blows. It beats you up and you start to question if you're good enough. You start to think "I'm not smart enough for this" which is exactly the battle we're trying to fight. I never worked with a team that went 0-12... but did come close a few times. And let me tell, as an adult, someone who had, at that point, been involved in successful FRC teams for year, it rattled me. And I'm a lot more confident in my abilities than kids who have to deal with wondering if their house is gonna get broken into that night (again) who don't have clean water to drink or food on the table.

I'll stand by my claim.

I have worked with several team that "make the top 70%" possible. Their robots barely moved on the field. They lost matches where the strongest robot on the opposing alliance sat dead. I can confirm that the team members and mentors (myself included) started wondering if this is a worthwhile use of their time and resources. Some of those teams have still not recovered from the bad decisions they made years ago. I was told by one of the parents on one of those teams that one of their major sponsors had started wondering if the program was worth supporting. Even if the sponsor believes in the mission of FIRST, they might think about supporting a different team.

[Foster]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

I'll stand by my claim.

And I'll stand next to you. Nothing is worse that spending 6 weeks working your fingers to the bone to build a robot that gets crushed all day Friday and Saturday morning. It can build inspiration the first year, not so much the second. You want to draw in students and parents and mentors. "We place in the bottom 5% we want to rise into the bottom 10% isn't a great elevator speech.

I'm one of the few people that voted for everything. Bring it on. Lets see an entire field of robot kits playing. Woody said "It's not about the robot.", so why are there 300 posts about it being all about the robot?

[Gregor]

Summer CD is the worst...

[notmattlythgoe]

Originally Posted by Gregor

Summer CD is the worst...

Idk, I thought it was a pretty good CD...

[cadandcookies]

I think I mentioned this in the other thread, but I'm seriously having difficulty seeing why people are taking issue with the AndyMark Intake kit. The kit consists of a motor, a couple gears, some shaft and some custom brackets. The only thing in there you couldn't buy previously is the custom brackets (okay, and maybe one of the gears). It's essentially just a package of stuff you'd already be ordering if you wanted to use AndyMark parts to make an intake, but now a bit more approachable so a new team doesn't have to connect all the dots without any numbers. In my opinion there's a huge difference between the intake kit and something designed specifically to play this year's game-- say, someone selling a catapult or a flywheel shooter, or the designs for any of those.

Personally, I'm not sure I'd even draw the line at the WCP MCC robot-- maybe if they were selling packaged mechanisms, but it looks like they're selling a few custom brackets they made and releasing a CAD model that uses a bunch of previously-available COTS parts in an interesting way as a resource. I don't really see that as an issue-- it's essentially what BuildBlitz did in 2014, and besides, Ri3D 1.0, and Team Indiana build a robot using their products every year anyway. WCP just put their design up on a product page instead of a blog post. Maybe I'm missing the point, but I just don't see the issues people are talking about.

[Ginger Power]

Originally Posted by Foster

I'm one of the few people that voted for everything. Bring it on. Lets see an entire field of robot kits playing. Woody said "It's not about the robot.", so why are there 300 posts about it being all about the robot?

I did as well for the same reasoning. To paraphrase a person that I respect very much: "If FIRST is going to keep growing, it needs to be sustainable, and not too difficult."

I'd love to be able to watch FRC on ESPN. The only way that's going to happen is if we raise the floor to an exciting level. That happens when there are easy solutions to the problem.

The MCC robot from WCP and the Ri3D robots help with this. I do agree that a line should be drawn when a rookie team can show up to a regional with a store bought robot and beat a bunch of mid-level teams. However, I sincerely doubt that even if there was a store bought solution, that teams would buy it and be satisfied. I've worked with 7 different teams for at least a short period of time. I'm positive that every single one of them would look to improve upon the store bought option.

[Owen Sull]

So a general question: The price limit for a part is $400. Say I found a part for $399.99 without tax. Does this limit mean I cannot use this item because of tax (or shipping) or can I still use it?

[cgmv123]

Originally Posted by Owen Sull

So a general question: The price limit for a part is $400. Say I found a part for $399.99 without tax. Does this limit mean I cannot use this item because of tax (or shipping) or can I still use it?

Tax and shipping are not a measure of the value of the part. (Note that sale prices don't count for costing purposes; it has to be the "fair-market value".)

[Owen Sull]

Originally Posted by cgmv123

Tax and shipping are not a measure of the value of the part. (Note that sale prices don't count for costing purposes; it has to be the "fair-market value".)

Awesome, thanks. I couldn't find that in the game rules or anywhere else.

[Daniel_LaFleur]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

You ever worked with a team that consistently failed to build a competitive robot? Seen the type of beating that losing constantly and missing eliminations brings? Ever tried to bring people up from that?

Winning feels good, it's inspiring. Going out and going 0-12 blows. It beats you up and you start to question if you're good enough. You start to think "I'm not smart enough for this" which is exactly the battle we're trying to fight. I never worked with a team that went 0-12... but did come close a few times. And let me tell, as an adult, someone who had, at that point, been involved in successful FRC teams for year, it rattled me. And I'm a lot more confident in my abilities than kids who have to deal with wondering if their house is gonna get broken into that night (again) who don't have clean water to drink or food on the table.

I'll stand by my claim.

Yes, I have been on teams that did poorly consistently.
Success on the field =/= inspiration.

I will agree that winning CAN inspire, but so can learning from those that beat you.

[Ginger Power]

Originally Posted by Daniel_LaFleur

Yes, I have been on teams that did poorly consistently.
Success on the field =/= inspiration.

I will agree that winning CAN inspire, but so can learning from those that beat you.

Repeated failure creates a lot more burnout, frustration, and anger than it does inspiration.

[PayneTrain]

I'm pretty disappointed y'all went ahead and spun the Chief Delphi Wheel of Absurdity without me, so I'm just going to do my thing:

-Mentors can only be on the drive team if they look like students
-Students should design the robot and force the mentors to build it
-My region sucks but it's better than your unorganized POS
-FIRST HQ sucks except when they do stuff I like
-Samsung Galaxy Nexus is a misunderstood phone
-If your Chairman's submission includes the line "we don't build robots, we build people" you're a bad person
-We're gonna build a wall around FIRST suppliers and make Mexico pay for it

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by PayneTrain

I'm pretty disappointed y'all went ahead and spun the Chief Delphi Wheel of Absurdity without me, so I'm just going to do my thing:

-Mentors can only be on the drive team if they look like students
-Students should design the robot and force the mentors to build it
-My region sucks but it's better than your unorganized POS
-FIRST HQ sucks except when they do stuff I like
-Samsung Galaxy Nexus is a misunderstood phone
-If your Chairman's submission includes the line "we don't build robots, we build people" you're a bad person
-We're gonna build a wall around FIRST suppliers and make Mexico pay for it

- Woo, 125 is good on drive coach. (Brando looks 15)
- Wait, that's not how it's supposed to be done? crap.
- I mean, #WeAreNE
- Duh?
- You lost me here
- Wait, by this metric I'm not a bad person woo!
- It's gonna be YUGE!


Edit... I just agreed with Will Payne, it's the Apocalypse... COTS and Dog Shifters living together...

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

- You lost me here

#throwback #toosoon