It is about the robots (OpEd)

[Katie Reynolds]

Originally Posted by phrontist

Reading the spotlight, it seems the stance of most CDers is that FIRST "isn't about the robots." I must say I disagree ferverently. Sure, FIRST should inspire kids to look into engineering careers, but it shouldn't end at inspiration. ... I consider the highest honor in FIRST to be winning at nationals, certainly not the Chairman's Award.

... But you do realize that FIRST is "For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology" ... not "For Building Robots That Win and Nothing Else" (Hmm FBRTWNE just doesn't have the same ring to it ...)

Originally Posted by phrontist

The rationalization has been made that in "the real world" engineers spend a lot of time making purchasing descions and altering OEM products to meet a specifc need. This is not what FIRST should be about because its far less fun/educational.

Less educational? I hate to break it to you, but in "the real world" most companies don't build everything from scratch. They have people who contact companies and look through catalogs trying to decide which part will meet their need the best, based on size, weight, material, cost, efficiency, etc. And if a company can't find the exact part they need, THEN they'll either make the part on their own, or order something as close as they can and modify it to fit their needs. That's what most FIRST teams do. It doesn't get more "real world" than that. And a little "real world" experience, though boring it may be, never hurt anyone.

Originally Posted by phrontist

If you can't spend the time about thinking what your bot needs gearbox wise and opt to buy one instead, you shouldn't get that gearbox.

So say some FIRSTer is manufacturing gearboxes and selling them at a reasonable cost to raise money for their cause or, heck, even make a few bucks for themselves. I look at the part and realize it's EXACTLY the gearbox I need. In fact, this one will work even better for me than the one I planned on using. Are you saying I should make the gearbox myself when there's one already available to me? Why? To build it, it would take many, many manhours plus I would need to find people to do it. To buy it, I would receive my part, I wouldn't have to worry about correctly building it and I'd be helping out the other FIRSTer.

Originally Posted by phrontist

Buying is a shortcut around thinking!

It is most definitely not. If there's a part you need and someone is already manufacturing it, why waste your time reinventing the wheel? Buy the part, save some time, get done faster.


But then again, that's just my opinion.

[phrontist]

Originally Posted by Katie Reynolds

It is most definitely not. If there's a part you need and someone is already manufacturing it, why waste your time reinventing the wheel? Buy the part, save some time, get done faster.

You aren't just letting someone else manufacture it, if that were the case I'd take no issue with it. You are letting someone else design it, allowing you to focus on some other design. I see this as detrimental to the FIRST experience on whole, as it means some teams don't have to make tradeoffs. They can buy their way around deciding "awesome gearbox, or awesome arm?" That kind of tradeoff is, much more indicative of real life, no? Making sacrafices builds character

[Paul H]

Originally Posted by Katie Reynolds

... But you do realize that FIRST is "For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology"

You forgot to include the full name. It's actually FIRST Robotics Competition.

Not saying it's all about the robots or anything, but in my oppinion, it's at least 50/50.

[Billfred]

Originally Posted by Paul H

You forgot to include the full name. It's actually FIRST Robotics Competition.

Not saying it's all about the robots or anything, but in my oppinion, it's at least 50/50.

Yes, it's a robotics competition. However, it's still preceded in its name by FIRST (For Inspiration and yadda yadda yadda). Even then, the robotics competiton is only part of FIRST (not to mention FIRST Lego League and the events at FIRST Place).

[JVN]

Originally Posted by phrontist

This is not what FIRST should be about because its far less fun/educational.

If you can't spend the time about thinking what your bot needs gearbox wise and opt to buy one instead, you shouldn't get that gearbox.

Buying is a shortcut around thinking!

I just want to touch briefly on these points:

1. Are you sure it is less fun?
I imagine the students on team 47 had a pretty fun season this year, even though they bought commoditty DeWalt drill transmissions for their robot, rather than creating custom ones.

2. Are you sure it is less educational?
I'm fairly sure that any mentor worth half a dang can turn anything into an educationall, and inspirational experience for the students. Reverse engineering can be fun lesson to teach. Even with a stock gearbox solution, optimization still needs to be done (final sprocket-chain ratios, wheel size). Even with a stock input-output transmission, there is a SIGNIFICANT amount of engineering that goes into mounting/utilizing it on a robot in any effective fashion.

3. Why is it shameful to adapt a working product to my needs?
You said, essentially: "If I can't build it, I don't deserve to have it." Okay... interesting. Where is the line? My team can't mold rubber or plastic. Does that mean we're not allowed to use Skyway wheels? Let's say... I'm on the "arm" subteam for our design group. My kids and I calculate we need a 367:1 reduction off the Chip motor for our application. We realize, that... (hypothetically) DeWalt makes a transmission to just about fit our needs. Rather than spend $200 and countless design-hours on a custom tranny, we pick up DeWalt's solution. My kids go nuts working with me to make it dance to our tune.

What exactly is wrong with this?
My kids didn't learn anything? SURE they did.
It's not that tough to make it a positive experience for them.

My kids didn't have fun? SURE they did. You'd be surprised how satisfying it is to "engineer" a solution for a problem, even if that solution involves off the shelf parts. (My team can't cut/cast gears, does that mean we shouldn't be allowed to buy from Boston?)


4. Am I really taking a shortcut around thinking by buying something?
Heck no! It shows that I'm thinking MORE. I'm doing the smart thing. S-M-R-T, smart.



Overall I would argue:
My kids would still have a strong positive experience, even if we built our robot out of "Industrial Erector Set" and prebuilt mechanical solutions. It's still OUR robot.

It is easier on mentors this way, and allows them to spend MUCH more time mentoring. If I don't have to worry about designing a custom transmission, and working the bugs out of it, I can focus 200% on making sure the kids have fun, and get a lot out of the process (another way around this, is to do the development/debug in the fall, then redesign/tweak/rebuild during the 6 weeks, but this is another story).
Plus, mentor burnout sucks. Making things easier for mentors in this competition (while allowing them to provide the SAME positive experience) is a definite good thing. There are so many people busting their butts for this program, and for these kids... why make their lives harder?


Okay... I guess I wasn't so brief. I feel strongly on this subject.
I guess, it all comes down to mentor quality. With good mentors, anything can be good for the kids.


$.20 (10x over my limit here)
John

[Rich Kressly]

Originally Posted by JVN

I feel strongly on this subject.
I guess, it all comes down to mentor quality. With good mentors, anything can be good for the kids.

John

Amen. The decision making process still weighs heavily for teams no matter what the choice. There are a lot of parts/systems to a robot. Buy a gearbox? Build a gearbox? Use a white paper design? Create your own? Adapt a readily availble gearbox for the kit motors? In all of these cases student learning and inspiration can still be high. In all of these cases student learning and inspiration can still be low. It's not the "WHAT you do" it's the "HOW you do" that makes a difference in our society. Every one of the above choices is accepted practice in today's global economy. Why create artificial boundaries that don't exist in today's world?

A team can choose or not choose to buy/use a stock gearbox. I won't argue over philosophical views on which one a team should do - that's up to the team and I respect all views/decisions that are well thought out.

I will tell you what inspires me about the selling of one awesome gearbox. A team is willing to take their own invention and share it with other teams at the risk of getting beaten with their own design. This elevates the level of competition and pushes all teams to "do it that much better" while encouraging teams to share more at the same time. I say horray for any team willing to make such a bold move. They've just increased their own workload, made it easier on others, and taken a step toward more highly functional machines at all regionals which will attract more sponsors and media. The end result is a huge win for FIRST and it's participants.

I'm quite sure Phil Jackson never took his coaching staff to other cities to teach the fabled triangle offense to help elevate the level of competition in the NBA. This is a culture changing activity we engage in for the betterment of society as a whole.

I guess I wasn't brief either ...... oops

[Stephen Kowski]

Originally Posted by JVN

Plus, mentor burnout sucks. Making things easier for mentors in this competition (while allowing them to provide the SAME positive experience) is a definite good thing. There are so many people busting their butts for this program, and for these kids... why make their lives harder?

Can't agree with you more, mentor burnout does suck.

I just think that if you have the time and man power to make a good transmission then great, if not, there has ALWAYS been one there for you IN THE KIT to use if you attached a servo motor to the bosch transmission.... that is why ppl started making custom trannys in the first place, to outdo the stuff that came in the kit.

Now if you think you can do better than the technokats, good luck. If you figure out some new revolutionary thing well then that is what this is all about now isn't it?

You wouldn't spend hours on making a hook if you could go to home depot and pick one out? I hope not cause I will be a few steps ahead of you time wise!

Anything i can buy off the shelf and use that can save me some time in that six weeks I will probably buy it instead of making it. I'm not gonna reinvent the wheel cause I can already buy it

[Max Lobovsky]

As several people have mentioned, I think one of the best parts of FIRST is how FIRST can cover so much ground and not be the worst for it. Chairman's or Championship, whatever you choose, there is a great community and great organization there for you. Both would inarguably be great accomplishments. FIRST brings the often very different people who find each of those goals most important together. It isn't just For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, its also For Inspiration and Recognition of Community Service and Selfless People (FIRCSSP? I need to work on that a bit more...)

As for purchasing, I think the rules are excellent as they are now. In fact, I would remove some restrictions on components (like pneumatics and motors). The reason buying components is fine and still provides opportunity for students to do stuff is because of two rules in FIRST 1) The low cap on spending, and 2) the restriction on buying goods that are not available to any team. Combined, they make it impossible to find a component that can make up a significant part of your robot. Unless FIRST robots start being mass produced, there is no way 3500 will buy any major part. Either the part is too specific to FIRST and costs a lot, or its too general and then you need to add work to make it functional (Andy's gearbox has got to cost more than a DeWalt transmission, but it will be a lot easier to drop in and use.) Because we all compete with these same rules and because many teams reach their budget cap, or would if they acutally had the need to, the rest of the competition is left up to the work put into robots.

Consider this: What is a conservative estimate for the time that goes into a robot (Don't forget all the time you spend outside of your designated build hours)? 8 hours/week * 10 people * 6 weeks = 480 hours. Assuming these people would be averaging a meager $8/hour and that a rough estimate for a non manufacturing job is that it costs a company twice the employee's wages to employ him/her. That comes to 480 * 8 * 2 or 7680, or more than twice the allowed maximum spent a robot. What I'm trying to say is that you can't realistically purchase a significant part of your robot.

[Rich Kressly]

Originally Posted by phrontist

...certainly not the Chairman's Award.
...and I look foward to counter-flaming

I was making it a point to ignore this part, but it keeps bugging me and since you are looking forward to the replies, here we go ... I could take so many directions here, but let's look at just a few personal examples I know about:

1. Visit Al Ostrow and Team 341. The've won a division at the Championship and would love to win it all I'm sure, but they've also won two Regional Chairman's Awards and were named a Chairman's Honorable Mention in 04 in Atlanta. Ever sit and talk with these kids and Alums? They're all fired up about their futures, FIRST, and sharing with others. NBC10 Tech Fest, Ramp Riot, Food Drives, mentoring, helping the disabled, visiting sponsors, demos, presentations to young kids promoting science and technology, on and on. These are people, very young people, who know every day that they do this they are positively affecting the future, creating limitless opportunities for themselves, and are seeing tangible changes for the better in their school, community, all of society, and most importantly in themselves. Make a visit and see if you come away remembering their robots.

2. Chesapeake Regional 2003 - 357 Royal Assault wins the Regional CA. Tears, joy, excitement. The students of 103 spent some time with them afterward. All they could say to me was, "We want to feel like that." Visit 357 and you'll see a huge LEGO effort and hundreds of young - REALLY YOUNG - kids fired up about learning, sharing, and the future.
Joy Troy and his crew are nothing short of remarkable for what they do for kids and for FIRST. Robots? Really?

3. 2004 SC Regional - Team 433 submits their first ever CA entry. They don't win, but they do win a Sat Judge's Award and come away with the respect of thousands. Small team with limited resources has impacted a community and the future in amazing ways. I suggest you talk with Meredith Rice about what she has learned in FIRST and what excites her.

4. Team 103 in 2003: I can write a book here, but let me just say that all of our lives are richer today, we have friends across the country, students and adults have had educational, professional, and job opportunities they wouldn't otherwise have, a town with more cows than stoplights is known for technology of all things, and after winning the CA, we all began to work harder to help others because it was our responsibility. Every time I write a letter of recommendation for one of these students and list their accomplishments, contributions, and the people they have encountered (Kamen, Lavery, Abele, Flowers, Wosniak, CEO's, Astronauts, ...) I think, "Holy $%&#! These kids are so far ahead and have so many opportunities because of this."

Man would I love to celebrate on Einstein someday, but there's no way it'll have the profound impact this has had. Get out there among these teams and spend time with them away from the craziness of the six weeks and find out what's important. They're all over the country and I could list dozens more team numbers here.

When you find a person (rare) or a group (much more rare) that is fully aware of the positive impact their efforts are having, believe that they really do make a difference in the world, and sense their own part in it as it is happening, the energy that is created is boundless and infectious. Some people spend their whole professional and personal lives in search of this feeling and they never experience it. From what I have seen, this occurs in FIRST more than anywhere else in our society and it is because of the CA and Gracious Professionalism, not because of the competition and who wins it.

[Steve W]

Rich, you are dead on. I love competition, love winning and love the challenge. The reason that I am involved as much as I am in FIRST is NOT because of these things. It IS because of the positive impact that I see with the students, mentors, teachers and those that they come in contact with. I have said many times that it was the students that drew me into FIRST. The excitement that I saw on everyones faces in Cleveland. The willingness to help out each other even if it meant that you might lose because of it. The impact that can be made by individuals and teams is huge. If I was given the choice of Chairmans or championship winners I would take Chairmans every time. To win at a regional or Championships is to win a battle but to win Chairmans is to win the war.

When at events you will not see me in the pits (not much anyway) with our team. I visit other teams and spend my time helping were I can and the on game days I announce. I do this because I believe in the principles behind FIRST more than the competition.

Karthik as per your quote "Another reason why I am so behind these gearboxes, it's going to raise the level of competition." I have to agree fully BUT is it all about the competition.

Note - Karthik and I disagree and argue lots. I believe that we are good friends and that there is no animosity held before, during or after one of our "discussions". I just wish that he would see the light.

[phrontist]

"I could be wrong, but I'm not." - Victims of Love (The Eagles )

[Venkatesh]

Its all so much like Legos.

Back when I was roughly five or six, I got my second Lego set. My first set was a large tub of simple, basic bricks. It was, needless to say, not flashy enough for me. So my second set was the original Space Shuttle. And the third set was something equally flashy. I built set #2 and #3 exactly according to instructions, as I barely knew how Legos worked. I was very proud of #2 and #3.

But what happened for my fourth creation? I could have built another set. But the instructions were so tedious and long, and I had such a short attention span, and I used to build outside, amidst melted crayons (Crayons can melt in the summer heat, the resulting puddle has glittery stuff in it). My fourth creation, when I was 7, was the Mercury/Redstone complex. Lego has never made one, and I doubt it ever will. I was so happy with that tiny contraption.

I guess what I am trying to say is that when you have no idea what you are doing or have no wherewithal to work with it, following preexisting routes/guides is not a bad thing. Einstein didn't need to invent classical physics, he built upon a framework that already existed. It is a humble thing to acknowledge that you have built upon, "The shoulders of giants".

At the same time, there is no pride or honor in taking designs of others and calling them your own. When it was suggested to Daniel Webster that he take partial credit for a compromise between the South and North, it was sarcastically said, "And I, with the help of Moses and some others, wrote the Ten Commandments."

The real problem that I see with selling gearboxes has to do with sending a message. Like it or not, there are people in FIRST who do think that teams that have more money/resources/contacts/political affiliations/importance/insert of factor here do have a far better robot, since they have professionals build it. I am not addressing that issue right now, it has been talked and talked to death in the past. What I am saying is that the selling of mechanisms reinforces that stereotype/image.

This is not the first time teams have sold parts. I remember something about Team 120 a long long time ago (in a far far away galaxy) selling boards for use with their clone of the First RX. How did other teams react back then, in a time so few remember? Maybe a few ancients will enlighten us?

[ChrisH]

Originally Posted by Venkatesh

Its all so much like Legos.

....

This is not the first time teams have sold parts. I remember something about Team 120 a long long time ago (in a far far away galaxy) selling boards for use with their clone of the First RX. How did other teams react back then, in a time so few remember? Maybe a few ancients will enlighten us?

I remember those. I even considered buying one for the team. But I wasn't sure I could actually get it to work, being a mechanical kind of guy. I don't recall any great controversy about them. The price was close to the production cost and as I recall they were giving away the art to make your own board. But it was actually cheaper to buy theirs (at least here in CA) as you didn't have to mess with chemicals or their disposal.

But the key thing was that they were intended for off-season use only. Remember that back in those days we had to ship the electronics back every year after the competition. You could either leave the control system at your last competition or pay a deposit and keep it until September or so when it had to be returned. So without something to take its place, your robot was a pile of spare parts.

There was great rejoicing when they announced that we would be allowed to keep the control systems, but it kind of killed 120's market.

ChrisH

[Barry Bonzack]

"We say it's about the robots, its not. It's about people, and things, and ideas."
-Woody Flowers

I fully feel FIRST is about meeting mentors, people from other teams, and people like Dean Kamen, Woody Flowers, and Dave Lavery. This is why all teams have buttons and identities, and why teams get to pick other teams to go with them to the finals. My team also made many mistakes with the robot and the drive train by having a direct drive. Our robot never ran for our regional, and still doesn't run today. Even without a robot, I feel I have gotten more out of FIRST than I have with anything I have ever participated in, and that is because of meeting a long list of people I wouldn't have gotten to otherwise, which includes members on this board to great people like my and other mentors, to Jeb Bush, to Kamen/Flowers/Lavery.

[Steve Shade]

I've been thinking about this post quite a bit over the last couple days and I see a few separate issues here. (sorry this is long)

1) The majority of real-world projects are being driven by COTS products. COTS is an acronym for Commercial Off The Shelf. That means I can go to some supplier that provides exactly what I need and not have to deal with the added time and expense of custom orders and re-development of the needed equipment. Engineers in the real world don't reinvent anything they don't have to. There isn't enough time, not enough money and too many other things to do. (sound familiar?) Teams should have the capability to buy any off-the-shelf parts they can from available suppliers. If people want to start a company to provide parts to team, go for it. Innovation FIRST did it, so why not someone else?


2) More importantly, the vast majority of the students I have mentored have not gone into and stuck with engineering programs. This is due to a number of factors, but the greatest factor is that my teams have been reasonably well balanced in terms of what kind of interests people have outside of FIRST. Some of the students, mentors and other team members I value most are those that have less of an interest in engineering. Instead they have a desire to express themselves in art, music, business, and everything else. However, I can still do my best at being an effective mentor to the entire team because everyone uses a set of "transferable skills" in the real world.

Transferable skills include things like networking, time management, teamwork, research, creativity, and problem solving. The mentors/friends/people/students that have affected my life the most are the ones who continue to help me improve my transferable skills verses my technical skills. I am a better person today because of many people who I have met through this program over the last six years. My goal as a mentor is to make every student a successful member of the team. And when the student graduates, I hope they have a better understanding of themselves and will strive to succeed in whatever path their life takes them.

FIRST teams are very unique in that they require a very diverse set of skills depending on the goals of your team. The idea behind all the awards are to highlight which teams have gone above and beyond in certain areas of this competition. Each team must determine which awards it wants to strive toward. If that is Chairman's, Winning it all on Einstein, or fielding a moving robot, each team must determine what goals will benefit the students, the school, the mentors, and the sponsors the most. The Chairman's Award celebrates people and how people are part of a team and how that team has made an impact. Without many people and this award, many teams wouldn't exist as they do now, the CD website would not be what it is now, and FIRST would not have the personal impact that it has now for every participant.


Steve Shade