Is allowing a practice robot good for FIRST?

[Matt Adams]

There's been a couple of threads in the past asking which teams build two robots, and then one asking if building two robots is good for the students.

It's been recently ruled that it's perfectly legal for FIRST teams to build a practice robot for students to practice with during the time after the ship date and between competitions. It appears that a number of voters agree that practicing between competitions is good for the students.

But is it good for FIRST?

Knowing that a number of teams build practice robots and that a number of influential team mentors have advocated this openly on these forums for a number of years makes this a somewhat delicate issue, especially because of my opinion will not be popular with many of them. I hope this starts a discussion that can offer a variety of input and worthwhile discussion.

FIRST is supposed to (and fortunately does!) mirror real life engineering problems in many ways. Each team having the same number of motors, a spending limit, and a size constraint attempt to somewhat 'level the field' for all teams, such that they're all playing by the same rules.

I think we can all acknowledge that this fairness does not make every team equal. Some teams have more money, more talent and more experience then others, and will consistently build better machines than new teams year in and year out. Not all teams are even. Making them even is absolutely impossible.

However, I would like to think, that in the end, FIRST should genuinely try to reduce areas of the competition that separate the 'haves' and 'have-nots'. You can't take away good engineers, make robots free to build or give every high school a six-axis CNC from which to cut their parts. Teams will have inherent advantages. Again, making them even is absolutely impossible.

However, there is such a glaring advantage which only 'have' teams can gasp on to: building a practice robot. I think FIRST really needs to address in the years to come.

Can't we all agree, that having a 'No Practice Robots Allowed' rule in the future would be very a simple and effective way to reduce the gap between teams with lots of resources and those without?

FIRST often explains itself as a 6 week robot competition, but in all reality, for many 'have' teams, FIRST is a year-round, comprehensive program. The build season is simply split into 6 weeks of building followed by 6 weeks practicing, design tweaking and coming up with 8 hour buildable upgrades for the Thursdays of competition.

The 'have-nots' simply have a 6 weeks of building followed by a few weekends of competing.

FIRST should strive, in my opinion, to create guidelines around reducing the gap between the teams with massive amounts of resources and teams with a limited amount. These rules, however, should not not inherently limit the creativity of robot designs or strategy.

For instance, FIRST has gradually been allowing a greater number of parts and suppliers to be used to build machines. To ensure that teams with million dollar budgets don't build machines purely out of titanium, the cost rules are in effect to provide checks and balances.

In my opinion, the glaring exception to the checks and balances system is allowing the practice robot. The incredibly simple way to ensure that every team has the same amount of time to construct and practice would be to simply disallow the construction of a second robot, effectively making the "6 weeks" a true 6 weeks.

Let's say you, a common non-FIRST person, standing from the outside, heard that there was a 6 week long robot competition and you only had a limited amount of time to build, test and practice with you robot. Then you heard that the biggest and most effective teams actually built a second robot so they could practice after their real robot shipped. Wouldn't you just call it what it is? A loophole. I certainly would, because that's exactly what it is.

The fact of the matter, however, is that FIRST says it's okay and not a loophole. I respectively disagree, and hope that in future years they'll change their mind, and that the FIRST community does too.

Matt