Team Update #13

[Wetzel]

Originally Posted by 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.
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Jason

I think you have some great points Jason, and hope you don't mind my snip of those, but I want challenge your assertion that it has become common for teams to build a practice robot. A fair number of teams active on these forums build practice robots, but the teams active here are a small subset of all FRC teams. I'd be interested if someone at each regional could go around to ALL teams there and figure out if they build a practice bot. A good secondary data point is how many built just a secondary chassis. I'm just not confident that a practice bot is anywhere near common.

Wetzel

[artdutra04]

To everyone who would miss the "finality" of the ship date... wouldn't the arrival of the Regional yield the same finality" to robot build time? It's a different finality, but still a finality.

Unlike some previous posters, I completely disagree that this would lead to a greater gulf between "have" and "have not" teams, but rather believe the opposite would occur. The "have" teams already have full practice fields, practice robots, and a dynamic partnership between their mentors, students, teachers, and sponsors. No matter how long the build season is, they will still crank out amazing robots.

But for the middle of the road teams, just another week could make the difference between a robot that barely works to one which works quite well, and with a bit of driver experience. For these teams, time is their most limiting resource. Give these teams more time, and they have more man-hours of robot design, fabrication, and testing time.

But there comes a point where increasing the number of man-hours leads to decreasing return-on-investment. A gut intuition guess would be that many of the powerhouse teams are nearing this peak, and that an extra week might only help them improve their robot efficiency in its operation by maybe 10%. On the other hand, a middle of the road or rookie team with much less resources and man-hours spent on their robot might see a 50% boost in performance from the same additional week of the build season.

Since such an eliminate-ship-date-rule would not in anyway set a glass ceiling limiting how high the "have" teams can reach, while still providing an immeasurable benefit to the middle of the road and rookie teams, as well as drastically increase the competitiveness and excitement of competitions (much to the delight of the audience), this is something I whole-heartedly support.

[Nick Lawrence]

I like the hard deadline, but I like a less claustrophobic build time more.

It sure would make the season thousands and thousands of dollars cheaper, for everyone.

I'd vote for it, if my vote counted.

-Nick

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by Nick Lawrence

I like the hard deadline, but I like a less claustrophobic build time more.

Parkinson's Law -- "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." Even if they gave us 12 weeks, I'm quite sure the final week would be claustrophobic.

I have yet to be on a team that did not run up against this law. (In my FLL days, probably 40% of the work was done in the week prior to the competition, and we had 3.5 months!)

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by artdutra04

But for the middle of the road teams, just another week could make the difference between a robot that barely works to one which works quite well, and with a bit of driver experience. For these teams, time is their most limiting resource. Give these teams more time, and they have more man-hours of robot design, fabrication, and testing time.

While I think this seems true now, I think for middle of the road and lower teams, the time needed to do the work would simply expand to fill the time allotted. Teams would likely still be as behind as they are now, just with less leeway.

[Steve W]

Hard deadlines are good for mentors. Burnout is probably one of the biggest reasons that mentors are lost. I have a loving and caring wife who says go and enjoy yourself. I do make sure to take an evening or two during build to take her to dinner. If the season was much longer I believe that things might change at home as hints start coming by the end of week 5.