Teasers????

[Tyler Olds]

You know, i have to ask out of the spirit of FIRST, why do people hide some of their robot? It's too late in the build for somebody to completely copy you and part of FIRST is to share science and technology with everybody.

Thoughts on this people.............

My compliments to all of you teams who are showing off what they have so far, good work.

[JVN]

We have this debate almost every year. Some teams feel comfortable posting pictures, other teams DO NOT. I urge everyone to realize this before posting in this thread, and starting what has become an annual debate.

Those teams that feel comfortable post, others will wait for the element of surprise.

[Ken Leung]

I think people have a right to keep their robot a secret until the actual competition, because it give them an edge in the first few matches in their regional. A team work so hard to figure out a robot to play the game, and if they decided to keep their strategy hidden so they can surprise everyone at the competition, I think they should all respect their desire of an element of surprise.

As you said, once competition startes, everyone will see your robot anyway, so there's no point in hiding your robot from other teams. And by then it will still be too late for some body to copy you.

Every year I asked "Can I come to your pit area and take pictures of your robot?", a lot of people answered with great enthusiastism saying "sure! go ahead! I will show you the good stuff", so there is definitely no lack of spirit of FIRST out there.

However, there is always those who believe improvizing at competition is one of the greatest challenge in the game, and that everyone should be allowed to make their robot better after what they see at the regionals. Those would be the people who want to keep their robot hidden until the competition starts, and the biggest scouter when it come to data on other robots' performance.

Then there are others who just don't feel so comfortable sharing what they know about robotics. To those people I respect their wish for privacy, but at the same time I would openly share whatever I know about robotics to them, that is if they want to listen.

At the end, I don't think I can tell what people should and shouldn't feel about this. People shouldn't have to feel sorry about their decision. People can do whatever they want, and all I can do is to show them what people are doing out there, and advise them what's more important: learning, or winning?

[Joe Matt]

It's a build up of hype. If you have teased the audience and they don't know, they'll look for you when it's unvieled. Plus, some robots still arn't done so only teasers can be given out.

Teams that have revealed their robot already have been added into my database (that is in the process of being made) and the scouting & strategy teams have plenty of time to develop strategies against them. The longer the time to develop a strategy, the better it will be.

[Tyler Olds]

Originally posted by JosephM
It's a build up of hype. If you have teased the audience and they don't know, they'll look for you when it's unvieled. Plus, some robots still arn't done so only teasers can be given out.

I have nothing against teams that are showing what they have, that is great.

However for that whole element of suprise, that would only make me more curious and I woudl do x2 more research against that team.

[Matthew936]

Originally posted by D.J. Fluck
Teams that have revealed their robot already have been added into my database (that is in the process of being made) and the scouting & strategy teams have plenty of time to develop strategies against them. The longer the time to develop a strategy, the better it will be.

It is a trade off there though. You are right when you say it gives you time to build a strategy of what to do against each robot, but did you forget that you will be allied with some of these people?
It gives you time to figure out what to do when allied with them and build up your score. If your robot is truly great than let people see it and worry.

Originally posted by Matthew936
It is a trade off there though. You are right when you say it gives you time to build a strategy of what to do against each robot, but did you forget that you will be allied with some of these people?
It gives you time to figure out what to do when allied with them and build up your score. If your robot is truly great than let people see it and worry.

By knowing what they can do, you can easily create a strategy for if they were with you. Although I plan as if my partner would not be able to show up, and then at competitions I ask what they want to do and then we modify it into something that works

[Clark Gilbert]

I really do enjoy releasing teasers and looking at other teasers, but I like keeping things secret even more. As the "TechnoKat robot picture taker for chief delphi" I can say that we will release some sort of teaser, but it will be another week or two...Also it seems like part of the fun for some of the people on our team is to make a strategy when you see a robot for the first time (DJ).






btw, i've already given this forum one teaser

[Adam Y.]

Our team is:
We are speaking softly about our robot and it is going to carry a big metal stick on it.

[Madison]

Originally posted by Butcher93
You know, i have to ask out of the spirit of FIRST, why do people hide some of their robot?

Well, I don't really believe that the spirit of FIRST precludes keeping some information about your design, mechanisms, and strategy proprietary - especially at such an early stage.

I start posting teasers for a few reasons. Mostly, I wanted to inspire others to do the same because I was uncertain about our progress. But, I also wanted to get people talking, some, and I wanted to raise awareness of our design and strategy.

Of course, I haven't yet mentioned anything about our design or strategy. As time passes, I will continue to reveal more images of the robot, both from Inventor and as true construction commences. From seeing these pictures, only a single person has been able to decipher our function, and I really enjoy seeing people guess.

We're proud of what we have in our robot this year. It's a significant improvement over our design and implementation of last season's robot, it'll be a blast to play with, and it employs a strategy that I've seen discussed very little - and take seriously far less.

[Yan Wang]

No one's hiding their robot... drive/fly over here to Ithaca, NY, knock on our tech room door and we'll be glad to let you in for your efforts. But unlike you, some people are too lazy to post up pictures and woud rather focus on getting robot to work rather than hinting to other people what it can or cannot yet do. Unless you plan on posting up a full picture of your bot, it's a waste of space on this server and pretty useless to the other teams. I think that every team should be able to have their robot's design a secret till the first regional they go to. It adds to the game as people are developing strategies and don't have an advantage beforehand.

[Madison]

Originally posted by monsieurcoffee
But unlike you, some people are too lazy to post up pictures and woud rather focus on getting robot to work rather than hinting to other people what it can or cannot yet do. Unless you plan on posting up a full picture of your bot, it's a waste of space on this server and pretty useless to the other teams.

It's a bad idea to suggest that I'm less committed than you, or that I'm somehow putting in a lesser effort because I take the time to share some of progress on this board. Pieces are starting to arrive so that we may assemble them. As that progresses, I will post real photos of our work. Additionally, I will continue to add updated, more complete renderings our robot as time passes.

If Brandon's bandwidth is hurting so badly that the extra 100Kb is too much to handle, I'd appreciate it if he would jump in and let me know. I'd be glad to do my part in keeping 47's costs down.

I've hesitated to post an image of our entire robot precisely because it is an ambitious design and is something my team, nor I, have ever attempted before. In fact, to my knowledge, nobody has done anything that emulates the challenges we are facing in making this strategy work correctly. As that is the case, I have yet to decide if I want want the entire community to see our potential failures, or if I would rather wait and share with them our success (and sweep failure under the carpet)

Attention is a good and bad thing, sometimes. But, it is fun, nonetheless. I do all of this for fun. I dislike competition.

Besides, when I do share our entire robot, there's a 99% chance people won't be able to figure out how it functions. So.

[Brandon Martus]

Originally posted by M. Krass
If Brandon's bandwidth is hurting so badly that the extra 100Kb is too much to handle, I'd appreciate it if he would jump in and let me know. I'd be glad to do my part in keeping 47's costs down.

The galleries are there for pictures.. the more the merrier. A teaser is better than nothing, in my opinion. I have no problems with it.

If it were two years ago, on our smaller account, however, I would've probably set a limit on the amount of teaser pictures. As of now, we can handle quite a few.

[Yan Wang]

First off, I was not aiming any critism towards you, M Krass. I was being sarcastic towards the creator of this topic. I find it rude to thank teams who have posted pictures and to accuse other teams of 'hiding' their robot.