Team Update #13

[Joe Johnson]

Originally Posted by dlavery

Team Update #13 is out and available here. This should hopefully fully explain the limits and opportunities of the revised withholding allowance, and let some folks calm down a bit.




.

We understand that this may appear artificially restrictive and confusing. We are not trying to be excessively particular in this area. There are specific restrictions (e.g. contractual requirements, union rules, etc.) on how complete ROBOTS are delivered to competition venues, and how they are loaded into the venues, that limit our flexibility in this area. We ask for your understanding and patience as we work through these requirements.

Nicely stated (imho). The whole rule but the example above in particular. I believe this is an excellent example of how to diffuses potentially problematic rulings.

First of all, most folks have no idea about the various constraints that FIRST is under with regard to rules, ship dates, etc.

I love that FIRST helps to educate the masses to the larger picture.

Second, I think the explanation above is great not because it explains everything, it doesn't, but because it hints at larger issues that FIRST has to consider, acknowledges that the solution is less than ideal and then asks for forbearance.

Nice. I think more rulings of this flavor and tone will go a long way to help us understand the way things work and (perhaps) accept the less than perfect world we all inhabit.

Joe J.

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson

Second, I think the explanation above is great not because it explains everything, it doesn't, but because it hints at larger issues that FIRST has to consider, acknowledges that the solution is less than ideal and then asks for forbearance.

Nice. I think more rulings of this flavor and tone will go a long way to help us understand the way things work and (perhaps) accept the less than perfect world we all inhabit.

Joe J.

I'm always surprised how, when the gate appears to open, so many rush through - creating chaos and blocking the open channel. Or, when things change, so many get up in arms. Or, when help/relief is offered, minds narrow instead of expanding. The larger issues are always there and have always been there. I agree that this helps all of us remember that those exist and when trying to help/add a little relief, those still have to be respected and worked with. (I include myself in forgetting to remember the bigger picture at times and for that, I am sorry.)

Jane

[dtengineering]

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson

Nicely stated (imho). The whole rule but the example above in particular. I believe this is an excellent example of how to diffuses potentially problematic rulings.

Yeah... what Joe says. Thank you, GDC for the explanation.

Jason

[RobertG]

I find this slightly funny because it appears that the GDC has created a loophole (teams must transport their robot in two pieces) to get around their own set of "restrictions".

[Molten]

Originally Posted by RobertG

I find this slightly funny because it appears that the GDC has created a loophole (teams must transport their robot in two pieces) to get around their own set of "restrictions".

It would seem FIRST has its own set of lawyers. But I agree this is a good ruling.

[GaryVoshol]

It's unfortunate that this couldn't have been made clear a week ago, when the first question of "can we bring in a whole, lightweight robot?" was answered in Q&A. I understand that it is possible that the details were not finalized then. But all in all this has been a frustrating situation for some teams and the GDC.

[jspatz1]

It seems this whole issue is the result of introducing the withholding allowance concept in the first place. Last year its rationale was to help deal with the new control system, and yet this year it is still there, and has even been increased to the point of creating the "whole robot" issue. If they have introduced technology that they feel cannot be dealt with in 6 weeks even in its second year, then they should increase the build season accordingly. The whole "withhold part of your robot" concept has become somewhat of a can of worms. There will always be new stuff in the KOP to get familiar with. There will always be some geographic areas that have winter weather during a winter build season. Perhaps we should just get back to having a robot build deadline as we used to. It was unambiguous.

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by jspatz1

It seems this whole issue is the result of introducing the withholding allowance concept in the first place. Last year its rationale was to help deal with the new control system, and yet this year it is still there, and has even been increased to the point of creating the "whole robot" issue. If they have introduced technology that they feel cannot be dealt with in 6 weeks even in its second year, then they should increase the build season accordingly. The whole "withhold part of your robot" concept has become somewhat of a can of worms. There will always be new stuff in the KOP to get familiar with. There will always be some geographic areas that have winter weather during a winter build season. Perhaps we should just get back to having a robot build deadline as we used to. It was unambiguous.

OR -- we have FIRST adopt an even better strategy that makes both the annual shipping nightmare and the withholding allowance unnecessary. VEX, FTC and Lego League figured it out long ago. FRC just has to catch up.

-dave

p.s. Joe - don't sweat it. Some people, no matter what you do, will always work overtime trying to find fault with just about anything. There will always be those that constantly argue "the sky is yellow" even when it obviously isn't and you have explained multiple times that it isn't. Just ignore them and move on.

[thefro526]

Originally Posted by dlavery

OR -- we have FIRST adopt an even better strategy that makes both the annual shipping nightmare and the withholding allowance unnecessary. VEX, FTC and Lego League figured it out long ago. FRC just has to catch up.

I like the way you think Dave. I hope it's a sign of things to come.

[artdutra04]

Originally Posted by dlavery

OR -- we have FIRST adopt an even better strategy that makes both the annual shipping nightmare and the withholding allowance unnecessary. VEX, FTC and Lego League figured it out long ago. FRC just has to catch up.

I like this idea, as it simplifies a whole mess of issues and can drastically cut back on costs for teams (so long as you have a pickup truck/SUV/minivan/trailer) and for FIRST, and also allows more leeway for teams who lose a week or two due to snow or other issues.

Being able to keep your competition robot right up until your competition events would also eliminate the need for practice robots. Teams wouldn't need a practice robot to continue training drivers or testing code or refining ideas for new mechanisms for their weight allowance when you have the actual competition robot right in front of you.

This would have the effect of giving every team a "practice robot", in that the powerhouse teams who already have a practice robot would be unaffected by the change, whereas the middle of the pack and lower teams would now have the added bonus of having a lot more time to dial in their mechanisms without shelling out the $$$ for a practice robot. This would raise the competitiveness of the bottom half of the teams quite noticeably, and would lead to many less "all-they-did-was-build-a-kitbot" robots on the field and a lot more competitive robots, which would surely make the competitions a lot more exciting for everyone involved.

[pathew100]

Originally Posted by dlavery

OR -- we have FIRST adopt an even better strategy that makes both the annual shipping nightmare and the withholding allowance unnecessary. VEX, FTC and Lego League figured it out long ago. FRC just has to catch up.

As a mentor, on one hand, I like where this is going.

On the other hand, I liked it when build 'ended' on ship day. There was a certain finality to it. It used to be a 'hard' deadline. I enjoyed things like sleeping again. And spouses were happier.

Now with the WITHHOLDING it seems that build doesn't end on ship day. Or at all. Instead we just have less to build with.

But I agree with the premise. The WITHHOLDING allowance (theoretically) provides teams with a better chance of showing up at their first event with a functional robot. It's no fun being down for matches, especially if you only go to one event!

Unfortunately, the WITHHOLDING may also have an unintended effect and encourage teams to show up with half of their machine in the WITHHOLDING that now has to be mated on practice day to whatever was put in the crate (the "ROBOT"). But I suppose they would not be doing themselves any favors by doing this (or the inspectors!).

[Karibou]

Originally Posted by pathew100

As a mentor, on one hand, I like where this is going.

On the other hand, I liked it when build 'ended' on ship day. There was a certain finality to it. It used to be a 'hard' deadline. I enjoyed things like sleeping again. And spouses were happier.

Now with the WITHHOLDING it seems that build doesn't end on ship day. Or at all. Instead we just have less to build with.

I completely agree with this - I liked the hard deadline. I liked being able to finally put the robot in the crate freshman year and say "it's done, it's done, it's done!" (I'm not as much of a fan of FiM, with the bagging and such, but that's a completely different apple) If we did not have the withholding allowance, I might have time to work on getting a team consensus for the nominees for the new award - we wouldn't have any robot-related items to work on until the team's chosen unbag time on Saturday. Right now, we have half of our robot out of the bag, and it's being assembled on the prototype chassis - we might be able to drive again tomorrow if everything gets wired up quickly. My team is small, and this is really putting a strain on our capabilities. Trying to write a total of 8000ish words with a robot sitting safely in the bag is easy, but it's significantly harder when you're constantly asked to be in the shop working on an unfinished practice robot.

[Foster]

Originally Posted by dlavery

OR -- we have FIRST adopt an even better strategy that makes both the annual shipping nightmare and the withholding allowance unnecessary. VEX, FTC and Lego League figured it out long ago. FRC just has to catch up.

As a VEX mentor I like the VEX system of bring your robot and compete with it. We do four events a year. After the first event 75% of the robots get completely disassembled and rebuilt. After the second event about 50% of the robots start from scratch. So across the season, the robots get better. The later competitions (like the Mid-Atlantic this weekend and the Eastern PA regional in March) see some very competitive robots that have been reworked (and re-reworked). At $75 an event and having 6 to pick from an hour drive from home makes this possible.

On the other hand I love the FRC ship by 5PM Tuesday or don't play. It's a real deadline. It has real meaning. It's kind of like the real world, it's got to ship so make it work. And at $6K an event it's hard to go to many of them a year. So it makes the playing field somewhat level. Our team goes to two events. We do an early event (Hello FLR!) and learn a lot. We revamp, fix, change and bring parts to make our robot better at the second event (Yo Philly!). We would do that even if limited to 5LBS of parts.

I applaud the GDC on the 65LB rule for 2010 to help the snowbound. I applaud the GDC for the "hey, don't bring assembled robots it annoys the following people ..." transparency. I applaud those of you who will follow the spirit that it was done in, after all at the end of the day, it's only a game.

So keep the withholding, next year drop it back to 40LBS or so, getting a chance at Rev2 helps. Bag and Tag sounds like a possible second solution if FIRST can get the OK to bring fully assembled robots. But the hassle of 60 teams AND 60 robots makes my head hurt.

And I'll follow Dave's suggestion on the ignore button for the others. ('cause I'm sure I'm on many ignore lists)

[Mr. Van]

Originally Posted by dlavery

OR -- we have FIRST adopt an even better strategy that makes both the annual shipping nightmare and the withholding allowance unnecessary. VEX, FTC and Lego League figured it out long ago. FRC just has to catch up.

-dave

VEX & Lego League are completely different beasts! The parts are limited. There is no real fabrication, the robots are easy to carry, move and store. More importantly, THE GAMES ARE ANNOUNCED MONTHS BEFORE COMPETITIONS! For a Vex robot, it doesn't matter much if you've got 4 months or 5 months to work on a robot. It makes a HUGE difference on the scale of FRC if you've got an additional month (or even a week) to work.

(Now, if FRC took a page from the Vex playbook and introduced the 2011 game at the 2010 Championship, that would be different.)

Extending the FRC build season from Kickoff in January to Championships in April will serve to make the gulf between the "have" and "have not" teams even worse (it comes down to mentor availability). A 4 month build is vastly different from a 1.5 month build.

Give us a year-round competition, OR give us a hard "ship-the-robot-put down-your-tools-get-some-sleep-go-back-to-doing-some-homework-remember-that-you-have-a-spouse-and-take-care-of-your-health date".

-Mr. Van
Robodox

[dtengineering]

I'd like to point out a few things that might help keep the "keeping your robot" and "witholding limits" issues in perspective.

Firstly, it has been quite common for teams to build two robots. One to ship, and one to practice on. It is a strategic game and engineering decision in which a team uses resources during build time in order to gain extra opportunities to work on code and driving... and even to manufacture the occasional spare, upgrade or replacement part.

With the new control system the cost of doing this increased significantly over the cost of the IFI system. Not a problem for teams with the deepest pockets, perhaps, but most teams would prefer to not purchase a second control system if they didn't have to. The witholding limit has helped our team, at least, to have the benefits of having a practice robot while still directing as much money as possible towards kids, rather than controls. For that, I am quite grateful for the introduction of the witholding limit. It not only makes our robot better, but far more importantly it makes our team better by giving the students more "hands on" time with the robot in the lead up to our event.

I am also not particularly concerned about teams who withold sufficient components and mechanisms such that they may quickly assemble those components and mechanisms into a robot when they arrive at the competition. They are sacrificing a lot of mass and potential pushing force, particularly when the limit is set to 40 pounds. Its less of a sacrifice, perhaps, at 65 pounds, but I can assure you that 110-120 pound robots will have a huge advantage over 65 pound robots when it comes to establishing position.

I also want to comment on the fact that the question of "how will the rule be enforced" isn't really that big of an issue. I am comfortable in the knowledge that the vast, vast majority of teams, and certainly -- from my experience -- ALL of the top calibre teams, will follow the rules to the best of their ability and understanding regardless of the enforcement mechanism. I am grateful that I get to take part in a competition with such classy competitors.

Finally, I want to reiterate my appreciation to the GDC for giving us some insight into the challenges they face when establishing and interpreting the rules. Often we are quick to criticize when something doesn't "make sense" from our perspective, but then our perspective as team members and leaders does not encompass the big picture of 1800 teams and events at over 40 venues in several countries around the world.

Jason