There is a rule that states to reuse code/designs you need to make them publicly available.
R15. Software and mechanical/electrical designs created before Kickoff are only permitted if the source files (complete information sufficient to produce the design) are available publicly prior to Kickoff.
I think we all know that this rule in its current state is extremely difficult to enforce. So instead, what if we made it a requirement of something else?
Should there be a design/code portion of the Engineering Inspiration Award? This could be in the form of CAD, an engineering notebook, code repository, design review, etc.
My pipe dream is that the FMS eventually runs a CI/CD server that auto-publishes robot code to some sort of online repository where you can view everyone’s code match by match. But this is a pipe dream. Just like official Python support. (Although, no bag day was also a pipe dream at one point…)
I’m very disappointed by teams that don’t release CAD/code. I’ve learned so much from teams that do. Yeah, it’s a competition, but in my eyes it’s an educational program first. Maybe some disagree though.
I’m all for the further encouragement of sharing resources online. Especially now that A) 2 champs splits up a huge number of teams, and B) we have 0 champs this year.
The worst part about not releasing code is that you have to put in more effort to keep it hidden if you do version control. Just keep it public, someone seeing that your robot has motors isn’t going to hurt you in the long run.
I voted no, not because I don’t support having released CAD / code as a requirement for an award, but because R15 is specifically about things created before kickoff that are used in the current season being publicly available before kickoff.
If a team doesn’t have CAD or code on their current robot that was created prior to kickoff, then they technically do not violate R15 if they don’t release anything.
I think what you’re trying to get at is that, unlike how R15 currently works, this change would force teams to release engineering material from the current season if they want to submit for the EI award.
That being said, I’m not sure submitting material to the judges at an official event has to be the same thing as publicly releasing the material.
If HQ were to collect the releases these could be held private until the end of the season and released publicly. This would also help collect the resources into a single location.
It could be an online submission prior to the event to be eligible for the EI award.
I voted no mainly because EI is more about your team’s outreach than the robot itself. The description is: “Celebrates outstanding success in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering within a team’s school or organization and community.” The guidelines then go on to talk about spreading STEM in your school and community, but nowhere does it mention anything about the robot itself.
My team already makes a robot book every year to show judges the different parts of the robot, how each was designed, and how it works. It’s filled with renders, design tables, decision matrices, example calculations, code segments, etc. I have no doubt that these books have helped us win a number of engineering (and other) awards in the past few years. It would be cool if the description/guidelines for the engineering awards would include an optional design review and/or engineering notebook section. That would help convince more teams to make more in-depth judging materials, which would in turn make the judging process more thorough. These materials could also be collected by judges, sent to FIRST HQ, and released at the end of the season to help improve documentation. That being said, I don’t think it should be a hard requirement for the engineering awards either. There will certainly be smaller teams that are rushing to finish their robot before competition and not have the manpower to make fancy books or presentations, and they should still be eligible to win awards for any cool features on their robot so long as they can describe them well to the judges.
As far as improving R15, I think part of the inspection process should include showing the inspector where CAD/code that was developed before kickoff can be found publicly to ensure that it isn’t hidden on Google page 20, somewhere on the dark web, or in song lyrics. Having to actually prove to an inspector that your resources are easily available to the public should discourage any attempt to skirt the rule. It would be even better if FIRST would provide an official library to share your CAD/code that can be searched publicly by team and year, and require that all teams upload things made before kickoff there if they want to use them during the season. I don’t really see that happening any time soon though.
You do have a knack for better explaining my points than I do. That is definitely part of my concern. I do think, though, that Matt’s solution works pretty well.
I’m not saying the Chairman’s judges should have to look at your code and CAD and judge the contents, but they should consider if you release it in the first place when choosing who should win the award. Given that Chairman’s has been more about spreading FIRST specifically and improving the FIRST experience for other teams than general outreach, I think it fits more there than in EI.
If that is your outreach, to people outside of FIRST, or even within FIRST…go ahead and claim it along with everything else you do, but to make it a requirement? Nowhere else does it require any specific required type of outreach. There are countless ways to spread culture and inspiration, sharing design is just one…
Even the if you look at the design awards, you can win them without CAD or well written sharable code…or specifying a specific form of documenting and sharing that design. It just has to work and impress the judges, how you do that is not specified or required. A nice notebook or pictures, or just a good explanation.
I think the point is not judging whether the team’s CAD is good, or even whether they have it, but rather whether they were gracious enough to share what they had with the community instead of being secretive about it
Which is a required thing already if you plan to use last year’s X on this year’s robot and have the CAD or other documentation for it. Legality not graciousness. Graciousness is sharing this year’s version.
Personally… I think that R15 should be rewritten. More than just the move that’s being made this year (to allow stuff from between 2020 Kickoff and 2021 whenever the event is as legal).
As follows:
R15: Software and mechanical/electrical designs created before Kickoff are only permitted if the source files (complete information sufficient to produce the design) are linked to the team’s FIRST profile prior to Kickoff.
In other words, the team still needs to post the stuff up. But, rather than uploading to a given site or what-have-you, they need to place links in a particular spot in their FIRST dashboard (with whatever type of identifiers are needed, e.g. CAD program type or programming language) that go to the team’s code or CAD or both for the year in question. Then FIRST puts the most current links in the team’s profile on the FIRST site. (If we’re being particularly awesome, TBA snags the links and sorts by year as well.)
If we’re talking about “teams need to share their CAD and code for 2021 in 2021 to be considered for award X”, I’m going to call that a hard no. There’s probably a number of reasons to keep them private, but the reason I’m going with a hard no is even simpler: There’s a significant number of teams out there that either won’t have any CAD, or won’t know how to share the CAD or code (no matter how much you try to tell them) until too late. I can cite an example that won an award in 2020 at an event that I’m 90% sure had no CAD, particularly of the part that won them the award!
I’d be down for–with suitable notice (coughcoughFrankcoughcough)–requiring previous seasons’ CAD/code to be available for some awards–but some teams will be skunked because of that. (254, for example, isn’t known to release their CAD. They DO release their technical binder, which helps a lot, and I believe meets the intent of the rule.)
Echoing what a couple others have said, Engineering Inspiration is not the correct award for this to be tied to.
I wouldn’t mind an “Engineering Notebook”-type award, like is present in other competitions. A portion of that could be making the notebook, and the underlying CAD/code, publicly available.
