Design Period, THEN Build Period

Competition FRC Game Design
1

While this was inspired by the recent survey discussed in the E-mail blast dealing with the KoP, I think this concept is sufficiently different from the discussion in that thread to warrant its own thread.

It looks like FIRST is considering some changes to the KoP and how it is delivered. Although I like the current system, I’m not averse to change, either. One change that I would like to try in particular is:

  1. Announce the game rules and release a VIRTUAL KoP at the beginning of December.

  2. Teams are allowed to strategize, design and order parts in December, but may not build anything that will appear on their robot during this period.

  3. The physical KoP arrives in January, upon whence a six week build period shall commence.

I suggest that this would provide the following advantages:

a) A greater emphasis on design, which means:
Students make greater use of Inventor
There is more time to discuss the math and physics of gearing, arms and motors with students.
Teams start building with a more complete set of plans resulting in less waste, less stress (okay… I dream), and hopefully better robots

b) Delays in shipping (it is expensive to ship overnight from USA to Canada… I can’t imagine trying to get stuff to Brazil in a hurry) and back orders are less problematic, and shipping costs should be lower.

c) there is more time to sort out game details on the Q&A forum before teams commit to a strategy in hardware… it’s much easier to rebuild your virtual robot when your strategy is outlawed…

d) without extending the “build” period, teams will effectively gain an extra week to ten days, as they should be starting with a fairly complete set of plans. This should result in more testing time, and more impressive robots and driving, particularly at first weekend regionals.

Of course there are drawbacks, too:

i) People are often busy in December for some reason

ii) It will be difficult to resist the urge to “just build a little prototype” part in December and end up putting it on the robot…

iii) It lengthens “robot season”… which while not necessarily a bad thing for me, it will probably require more volunteer hours over all

I’d be interested in what other people think… would you like to have a “design” period prior to the six-week build period?

Jason

2

The 10 weeks :ahh: I understand what you are trying to do, but I doubt that the honor system will work. (It doesn’t now)

I would really appreciate more time, especially since we lost both our CAD students.

3

I really like the idea, but maybe only have a week or two, so that you both have less time to do any prototyping, and less time to agonize over the fact that you can’t do any prototyping. This would probably work best in a year with MAJOR changes to the KOP, such as the new control system for 09

4

Idea: Extend the build season by a week, and then kick off the competition in phases. My sample build season schedule:

  • Week 0 Sat – Release VKoP; manual sections released: Communication, Team Organization, At the Events, Robot Transportation, The Awards, The Tournament, The Robot, Kit of Parts
  • Week 1 Ongoing – Several game hints are released throughout the week
  • Week 1 Sat – Kickoff presentation @ Manchester NH; game simulation released; manual sections released: The Arena, The Game
  • Week 2 Tue – Supplemental KoP items may now be purchased and ordered
  • Week 2 Sat – Physical KoP arrives; robot components may now be fabricated
  • …
  • Week 8 Tue – Shipping!
5

I like the idea a lot, but 4 (additional) weeks of design may be excessive. We’d sure make good use of it with Inventor though. The holidays are not a great time to be doing robots, especially for the volunteers.

The 1 or 2 week design period proposed seems good, enough to be able to hash out ideas thoroughly and do some training but not enough time to get into overthinking it.

The VKoP would have to have some far better descriptions, photos and part numbers to make it valuable, otherwise we’d be just trying to figure out 'what is it?"

Don

6

I agree with the comments and ideas posted here. Figuring out a way to make something like this work in the FIRST context will certainly require an iterative design cycle.

While I appreciate the simplicity of the current six-week do everything model, and am happy to play the game under the current rules, perhaps we can brainstorm a way that we can have more time for design. In my classes I always force the kids to come up with a reasonable set of plans on paper before I let them start cutting or building, and I would like to see something like that for FIRST. (They can change their design if they run into unexpected difficulties, but they have to be able to explain what went wrong and how they plan to solve the problem before they get any additional material for a re-do.)

Jason

7

To what do you refer? I know that we re-built the entire robot within all build windows–strictly by the rules. I also programmed within build windows only.

I think the honor system works just fine.

I think this would help immensely. Then again, I don’t know if I could hold out that long…:ahh:

8

Edit: Read Mark’s post right below mine. Ignore this post, unless you’re dying to read the spoiler with the original.

the old post
[spoiler]I’ve enjoyed the six-week model, as have my grades and sanity. Still, forcing teams to reason out their design wouldn’t be a terrible idea.

Suppose that at Kickoff, the Robot section of the manual was withheld along with the Kit of Parts. Teams would get the game, game pieces, and (obviously) the Kit of Parts section of the manual, giving them plenty to start hashing out design ideas until the following Friday or Saturday, when they receive their full kits and robot manuals.

This does mean that folks would have to make two trips to their Kickoff site, but it would force teams to prototype manipulators at the start of the build period instead of the “OMG SHIP IS TOMORROW WE NEED SOMETHING!!” approach that I’m sure I’m not alone in using at some point (and also not alone in getting poor results from). I wouldn’t outright ban robot fabrication during such a period, but perhaps one or more of the judged awards could place an emphasis on design during this first week.

I could see such a concept reducing the number of manipulatorless bricks arriving at competitions, something that could make for a better competition all around. (That’s from someone who’s had a hand in three such bricks, each unintentionally designed as such.)[/spoiler]

9

Much as the design processes of individual companies varies, so does the design process of each team. Forcing teams to bracket time for various tasks removes the flexibility to optimize for the resources of YOUR team.

If my team wants to place more emphasis on design we could decide in Dec that we cut no metal until there is a drawing (of some kind). Perhaps we’re not so good with the drawing end, but we can mock up in cardboard and plywood like lightning. Getting a simple bench level prototype done in week one may be the secret to this teams success.

If a team want’s to design then build, great, do it. If you have a better way to git 'r done then, by all means, DO IT THAT WAY! Many teams have posted thier proven processes to jump off from.

10

I owe everyone a clarification of my earlier post in this thread. I did not intend to suggest that the community as a whole disregards the constraints of the six weeks. I believe that the majority of our community stay within the six weeks and abide by the fix-it window rules.

If you read many of my posts, or are unfortunate enough to get trapped in a room with me, you will know that I am passionate about the magic of what happens to teams in the six weeks. To me, the six weeks can raise anyone involved to a higher appreciation of themselves. It does not matter if it is your first six weeks or your 10th. The process of the six weeks works magic on the mind.

The changes that I see in students over the six weeks never cease to amaze me. There is nothing else in our school system, including sports, that grips a student and changes their lives like FIRST Robotics and the six weeks. Too often, students are not challenged enough to attain personal growth. The six weeks does this.

The problem, as I see it, is the emphasis of a lot of teams is not with the process, but with winning the competitions. Why does FIRST constantly have to remind us at competitions to bring our gracious professionalism? IMHO it is because they realize that there is misplaced emphasis on winning.

I appreciate the need for competition. We need to validate the designs and execution of what we did in the six weeks. The competitions need to be fun, but go to any regional and you will see a few teams that are not having fun. I see students that get screamed at by their mentors. I see mentors screaming at mentors. Why? To me, this is the emphasis on winning. In conversations with some of these teams, they admit to doing what is necessary to win.

I appreciate the honor system. I know, as in the “real world”, there are teams that do not. I feel bad for their students and sponsors. It is their loss.

John
Sorry that this sounded like a rant.

11

Personally, if they made the build season any longer I’d sure hope there is a nice pillowtop mattress in the KOP.

12

I fully agree. FIRST is about throwing a challange at you and letting you sink or swim. FIRST isn’t about baby stepping you through the processes, showing you that you need to design first, then build. 6 weeks is not enough time. We all know that. That’s why FIRST gives us 6 weeks. There are mentors and people there who have real work experiences with deadlines to show kids what to do. If you want a quick and easy brick on wheels, then you can design that in a day. If you want a complex machine, you can design that in a week, but remember, then you only have 5 more weeks to build. It’s a trade off, just like life. From a learning standpoint, I can’t see them releasing the KoP or game early.

There’s a CHALLANGE in the 6 weeks. Giving us 4 extra weeks (with 2 at least during a major break) removes a significant amount of challange, and releaseing the manual and game early is simply unthinkable. From the fact FIRST needs to build the field to make sure it works, run through game scenarios, Dave needs to do the animation, etc. From a practicality standpoint I can’t see them releasing the game early.

The ONLY time I can see them release something early would be the new controller that’s coming around in '09.

13

This discussion of more than 6 weeks came up at our team forum in Toronto. I will say what I did then. NO MORE WEEKS in build season. Many of us (older people) have work as well as robotics. By the end of “Robotics season” we are tired, burnt out and behind at work. By robotics season I am speaking of January to mid April. Our team also meets during the rest of the season much less frequently. There is also VEX and LEGO League. We have community outreach and fund raising. On top of all that some of us are still married with children.
In our discussions we came to the conclusion that the only way we could lengthen the season is by going into Christmas time (basically December) which for most is a busy family time.
Right now there is a 6 week time frame and somehow most of FIRST completes their robot on time for ship. There is still tweaking to do but when isn’t there. You could go to an event in November, say Ruckas, and you will still be trying to better for that event. What I am trying to say is that there will never be enough time for anyone as we are always trying to improve. What will happen though is that the better teams will have more time to put their multitude of resources to work to build even better robots. Teams that have poor time management skills will still have poor time management skills.

I will give one short example. Another mentor on our team and myself have decided to build a robot for the ECRG competition to be held in November of this year. So far we have met once and spent 2 hours thinking of ideas and a basic idea of what we want to do. I have even ordred a part that we will need for our testing. We decided to enter in mid April and here it is June with the only physical work done was taking apart last years VEX robot that I built. As of now there is no urgency so we put other priorities ahead of this one. I believe that this will happen with most teams even if we extend the season.

What can be done before January? Test, design, teach, inspire, fund raise, promote, recruit, community outreach, LEGO, Vex and the list goes on. We are not without important FIRST tasks when we are not building. FIRST is a “Life” changing experience. Why do we try and restrict it only to the 6 week build period?

14

Steve makes a good point - 6 weeks definitely stretches the resources of us non-students, 8 weeks (contrary to my original post above) would make it worse.

The spoiler text in Billfred’s post* has a good is a in there: a 5 week build season, prefaced by a 1 week design season.

It’s been said before, FIRST isn’t advanced shop class, witness the teams whose student design is implemented by professional machinists, perfectly within the rules AND spirit of FIRST. It’s about the design, and the finer points of fabrication (i.e., making it work), not running a milling machine or band saw. **

Keeping at 6 weeks, but putting an bigger emphasis on the design process, might pay some good benefits. (Alternative: Give an award for a well-documented design - submitted in week 2!)

Don

  • Not sure where that spoiler text is from, didn’t see it in a previous post, so I assume Billfred wrote it but then hid it. OK. (cool BBcode feature I wasn’t aware of, too!)

** Our team does let the students do the fabrication as well, even though us mentors would like to play with the tools instead :smiley: I personally disagree with the professionally-built robots. But, this practice does not appear to interfere with the mission of FIRST, and so I really don’t argue the point at all.