We’re definitely a “have” team. But it’s taken 11 years of hard work to get there. We invite anyone in our area to come use our practice field. We host workshops at our facility. We’ve spent the last four years working VERY hard to build up our parent mentor base. It’s allowed us to be able to work with 6 different high schools and different school boards and paperwork, etc. It’s allowed our engineers and teachers to have some “time off” when they need it. We meet year-round doing community service projects and fundraisers and a teambuilding weekend. Yes, we build two robots (when we can) so that we can have more student involvement. But I’m sure there was a time when we didn’t have the resources to do that. There will always big conglomerates, big companies that have money and resources to accomplish great things. But that doesn’t stop the entrepreneur from starting his/her own business and growing it.
I think that there is two sides when a team decides to build a practice bot. You may say only the rich or the teams with many people build a practice bot. But I know first hand that this is untrue. I am a mentor, former 4 year team member of team 27. We are very much a veteran team however in the past three seasons we have lost almost all funding including all sponsorships this year. We have 12 students on the team this season compared to some with 40 or more and we still decided to build a practice bot. Our team feels that it is more important to focus on building two identical bots instead of devoting all the time into building one. If you look at it that way you could say that people that build one bot may have a superior bot to a team who builds two, and the people that build two rely on that the extra practice time that you get with making a second bot is more important.
Building a practice bot is perfectly OK and legal and shouldn’t be taken away. Teams who do build a practice bot get the same amount of time to complete their bot as a team who builds one they just allocate their time different to allow them to do this. I don’t see how you can say it widens the gap between the have and have-nots when it is not a money or facilities issue but a team preference issue. FIRST is meant for students to learn team work and communication skills working with real engineers in the real world but also for the students to build the bot to their ability. If they think they can accomplish this in a different way than another I don’t see how you can justify taking this away.
If building a second bot to practice with should be taken away, should teams who choose to build a practice field to get a better understanding of the game be taken away too? You could argue that this gives the team and advantage over other teams because they can actually see the field? Whats next? saying teams can only have x amount of adult mentors because it will give that team an advantage of a team with less? It will never be equal between teams. There will always be teams with more experience or with a bigger budget or better facilities to build at. I consider my team to be a “have” team just because of that reason, we have a 9 year old team which helps us immensely when it comes to build time, but to “close the gap” we do help any team/mentor teams that asks us and provide them with some knowledge that they may not have had before. Getting a little off topic but just my 2cents
The practice robot can have positive and negative effects. I’m a member of a ‘have not’ team, but I can still see both sides (I think). They can give an advantage, especially in training drivers to operate the robot well, and allowing the development of new parts and code. I think that FIRST should help stop this (is that what the Fix-it window does, I didn’t understand that), by allowing only certain modifications, and forcing you to run at least one round with your original code. This cuts down on people using their time to rebuild their robots, then just taking stuff to competition.
However, training drivers isn’t neccessarily bad. It gives teams a slight edge, but could also be done easily enough with the EDUbot or other remote control vehicles. Also, many teams don’t have much time to practice. Generally we only have a week or so between ship and the Granite State Regional.
To be totally ‘fair’, FIRST would need to do alot. Someone mentioned teams working all year long. This is something that, for the most part, can’t be avoided. The only thing FIRST could do would be change the challenge drastically every year, so the teams would need massive redesigns. Beyond that, there isn’t much to prevent rolling design work.
The simplest solution (which ‘have not’ teams don’t want to hear), like many have said, FUNDRAISE. When you take the initiative to build team with resources, you can accomplish a lot. Also, teach the students early on what they need to know, so that they can design and build the robot a lot faster, allowing you to train on it, and test code.
You’d be surprised how many mentors are willing to donate more time. I know I continue to be surprised. That’s probably why the CDI, OCRA, and all the other pre-season competitions, as well as the IRI and all the other post-season competitions sprouted up. Students expressed an interest, and mentors were more than willing.
Regarding practice fields, I know of teams that take a classroom, move the tables and chairs, and use the classroom for practice. Or a hallway in the school. Or, if you’re really lucky, the gymnasium during a school break when there are no athletic events. It’s not perfect, but it saves money, and gets the job done.
So, I’ll reiterate my opinion from an earlier thread to say that, for no other reason, FIRST should not allow practice robots simply because a deadline is a deadline. Real engineering firms have ship dates, and refining and testing should be scheduled in the time allotted to the design. If you want to build an advanced robot, fine, but make sure you have the resources to finish it in the time that you have. Knowing your team/company’s limits is a big part of the engineering process, isn’t it? When students are in high school, should they be taught that they can finish assignments after deadlines pass, once they know the best way to finish the assignment?
I think something that hasn’t really been addressed has been the difference between teams attending early and late competitions. The skill gap between teams who have been practicing for a week and those that are just showing up to the first competition may not be that great. Once a month passes, however, a pit crew could’ve taken a practice robot apart many times and drivers could have practiced for tens of hours (time they would never receive in a true FIRST competition). By the end of the regional season, the difference in teams would be substantial. In addition, there is a 20-day gap between the last regional and the championship event. Two-robot teams will have a chance to learn what strategies work well with their robot, what they need to work on, and what they need to learn how to fix quickly. Teams that don’t have the resources to build two competition robots can only hope they can remember how to run their robot (It happened to us; we only attended the Richmond regional and championships last year, with a full month and a half between events).
I would have to disagree. Even though a team makes a practice bot, it doesn’t mean they miss the deadline. They still have to ship their robot at the same time everyone else does.
This is the way I see it. FIRST is an organization that governs the creation of these machines. It kind of oversees everything. As long as a team takes a robot to competition, and during that competition that team follows all of the rules, FIRST has no right to tell a team what they do during their build season, outside of what rules are listed in the manual and understood (i.e. a team should make their own robot and not completely steal another or… maybe buy one… just for the sake of an example.)
If you look at it from a sports angle: a football team shows up to competition and has an awesome defense or something. They’re unstoppable. As long as the team is following all the rules, the NFL has no right to tell them how to practice. Its the same way with FIRST. Any team can practice anyway they wish. Building a practice robot is a very good way to do this.
And I personally do not believe in the “have” and “have-not” team thing. ANY TEAM CAN BECOME A “HAVE” TEAM. All they have to do is venture forth and find the resources. They’re there. I come from a small town. I have worked to raise thousands of dollars from my community of 15,000. I personally believe that any team can find money as long as they approach businesses the right way.
And I believe FIRST is a year-round program (in reply to a message at the beginning of this thread). There is so much more to learn fron FIRST than in that 6 weeks. You can do LEGO League, Marketing, comunnity service. That’s what FIRST is for. And I think having a practice robot allows students to further learn about engineering, and I think anything that teaches more to students should be in the best interest of FIRST.
A major counter argument in favor to allowing a practice robot is summed up well by Amanda’s post above. The argument is something like this:
- The more students are working with robots, the more excited they get about science and technology.
- Allowing a practice robot to be built gives a good number of students more time to work more with robots.
- Hence, a practice robot is good for students, and hence good for FIRST.
The flaw I see with the practice robot is:
- All students should be allowed to get the same amount of design, building and testing time with their robots for a given robotics season.
- Many teams do not have the resources to build two robots.
- Hence, teams should not be allowed to build two robots.
Wouldn’t the compromise be:
- The more students are working with robots, the more excited they get about science and technology.
- All students should be allowed to get the same amount of design, building and testing time with their robots for a given robotics season.
- The design, building, and testing time should be longer.
What if the 6 weeks were actually 8 and no practice robot was allowed? What is the 6 was actually 16? This would eliminate the advantage of the practice robot, while still allowing students more time to build and get inspired by FIRST.
This has been hashed out before… but perhaps this is a different context to the argument about having additional time.
Reply away. Thanks for the good discussion so far!
Matt
Another Aspect of this discussion would be that teams who travel to more Regionals have more practice and time to improve as well vs. those who just go to 1 or 2 events. Either way the Practice robot would be fine in my eye if you can make it happen with students involved in all aspects especially if you’re only able to compete in a limited amount of competitions.
My team has never built a full practice robot in the 14 years we’ve been involved base on the fact that we tend to concentrate on the process not necessarily the competition. If you haven’t noticed we have not won a single robot competition yet but we’ve always been very competitive. You just have to balance the focus so that your team has a competitive machine without sacrificing the interaction of the students.
IMHO having a practice robot or not doesn’t matter, as someone else put it, that’s reality! The student should understand how to use their resources efficiently. The message of FIRST has not changed in the 14 years. Just get back to the basics and not worry too much of all these details of who’s better off or not. Just concentrate on your kids and let the destiny work its charm.
Ellery
How does FIRST expect to let any drivers have any practice at all? If that rule were existing, I mean. But, yeah, I envy all those teams with the money and the talent and the capabilities to build two robots, but until someone does something, all we can do is watch and learn
-Gary (The Onion) Chaboya
nice points.... :p (sorry; had to make a plug to my older brother... and totally butcher his quote in the process. ^^; sorry bout that Gabe…)
Anyways; everyone had valid arguments which were backed up with a good amount of persuasive detail, yet I still wish to insert my two cents.
From my personal experience and knowledge from past years, team 233, which I wouldn't consider a "have" **or** a "have-not" team, has never built a second robot *identical* to the one shipped for competition. Although we do always (at least try to) build a prototype of some sort to test out autonomous programs and how sensors work, we never really have felt the necessity to build a *second* robot for practicing driving. Every year we build a high caliber robot, yet it’s a one shot deal. We spend tons of time designing the robot before we even start to think of building the real thing because we only have enough resources to build *one awesome robot*, which, in my eyes, is better than building two mediocre bots, even though every year drivers never get more than two or three days to practice before we ship off 6 weeks of hard work, dedication, and love. We are very blessed to be able to have mentors from NASA (KSC) help us, but we are not exactly that well off financially. We *are* constantly doing fundraising, ranging from car washes during the summer to gift-wrapping at holiday time and everything in between, yet instead of devoting those funds to lets say, building a second robot, we decide to donate that money to *other teams* who really need it or to help us pay for expenses related to competing out-of-state.
I suppose in the best interests of your own team and from your experience in FIRST, you can logically deduce what to do with your time and money not only in the six week build period, but throughout the entire year as well. If you decide that building a second robot to allow drivers to have more practice time after your robot is shipped is the best course for you, then by all means, expend your time and resources to fit your expectations best.
From a drivers perspective, a second robot identical (or close enough) to the robot shipped off to practice with in between competitions would be *wonderful*. It would be great to really get a feel for the robot and really get used to it so that when competition time rolls around, you're not just lost in an abyss of not knowing what’s going on. From a separate perspective though, I feel that in the great scheme of all things, extra driving practice is really not that essential. Hey, that’s why we have Thursdays for, right? To practice, get used to the field, and get a taste of what’s to come. :D That little taste is enough to fuel my adrenaline and get me pumped up enough so that I can let my instincts take over and I can not worry about messing up or figuring out how to drive the robot, but rather focus on getting the job done, achieving my objectives, and focusing more on cooperating with my fellow driver and developing our strategies.
***However*, that is not the issue we are discussing. we are discussing whether or not illegalizing the ability to build a second robot if a team so choses would be *better for FIRST as a whole or not*.**
A lot of good points have been made about the parallelisms between FIRST and the real world, and since FIRST is geared toward high school students, almost as a preparation for the real world, it should enforce guidelines like the real world does, such as obeying deadlines and things of that such. But FIRST is also *For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology*, and it should be used as a tool to whet the appetites of teenagers who will become the foundation of tomorrow's society. Personally, in the scheme of all things, I believe whether or not teams should be able to build a practice robot should be left completely up to them, because in the end it is meaningless. Sure, your drivers get more hours of practice, but that doesn’t really *mean* anything. That’s NOT what FIRST is about. FIRST is NOT just about your robot, how good it is, if you win at a regional or even at nationals. FIRST is about *teamwork*, *gracious professionalism*, *getting along*, *learning from your mistakes* and *learning to get through crunch time alive*. FIRST is about *family*, *making new friendships*, *belonging somewhere*, *doing something you love*, and *finding out what your real love is in life * so when you're old and wrinkly you can look back at high school and say "This is when I found myself." FIRST is about so much more than just **robots**. Sure it’s awesome to go to competitions and get carried away in all of the hype, but that’s really not the point. That’s just a brilliant grand scheme that Dean came up with to get us teenagers off our lazy butts and excited about science and technology. :DI believe a big motivator for the 6 week build period is the burden on mentors. Many mentors have families who kindly put up with not seeing their family member much for 6 weeks. Asking those mentors to put in 8, or 10, or more weeks will decrease the number of willing mentors. Additionally, there’s scheduling issues. With many weeks of regionals to fit in, and with not wanting to interfere too much with the end of the school year activities, it’s just not practical to have a longer build season.
On a more general note, I’d like to add this: of course teams that can build a practice robot have an advantage over teams that can’t. Is this far? Not at all. But if you say teams can’t build a practice robot, does that suddenly make the competition fair? No. Teams with more resources will always have an advantage. The only way to take away this advantage would be to dictate everything: budget (TOTAL budget, not just materials for robot), suppliers, manufacturing methods, minimum number of students per adults (i.e. “You are not allowed to have more than 1 mentor for every 10 students”), etc. On my team we are lucky to have a large number of adult mentors. We have a sheer manpower advantage over teams with 1 mentor and a handful of kids, regardless of the other build rules & limitations. The flip side of that, though, is that we also have a LOT of students on our team. If we only build our competition robot, there’s a practical limit on the number of kids that can be working on it at one time (there’s only so many kids that can cram around a robot on a table). With a second, practice robot we can get twice as many kids up close and working on the robot. For example, sometimes we set up 2 crews - the “prime” crew which takes care of building and maintaining the competition robot (and serves as pit crew at events) and the up-and-coming crew where newer members get a chance to learn by building and maintaining the practice robot. Take away the practice robot and we will not be able to let as many kids get their hands dirty working on the robot (or each kid will get to spend less time doing it). This seems like exactly the opposite of what FIRST is trying to accomplish.
{edit} I also want to add that in high school I was on a team that, while still decently funded, did not have the same kind of resources that my current team has. We did not have nearly as much success as my current team, either. It didn’t matter, though. We always had a great time and learned a lot. Losing isn’t fun, of course, but we didn’t really expect to win the whole thing anyway and just enjoyed the experience for all that it was. There’s still things that I miss about that team; many people may not realize it but there are a few advantages of being on a small team. There were times as a student where I was able to go off and design a small feature of the robot and build it on my own. This isn’t always practical with a big team because there’s just not enough features to go around. There was also a great deal less pressure to win. Successful teams seem to experience a lot more disappointment when they lose which can in turn take away some of the fun of competition if you’re struggling more than normal. I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that average teams end up enjoying the competition more than successful teams because winning and losing is taken more in stride. {/edit}
Matt,
I think you are missing my point, (as well as some of the other folks here.) You are attacking a practice robot as giving teams an unfair advantage because they allow the team to “learn more”. I am applauding the ability for students (and mentors) to learn more. Throughout history, learning has been suppressed, delegated to a select few, or dismissed in the name of some ideal. When one team learns, other teams benefit, through this forum, team interaction, and assistance and mentoring at competitions. If you think we are competitive because we are a “have” team, or build a practice robot, or as suggested above, skirt or bypass the rules and the meaning of GP you are doing a great disservice to the engineers who mentor, the students who work on the robot, pit, or other activity, and the teachers who keep us focused on a learning tool that exceeds many programs in schools today. We don’t measure our success by the number of wins we achieve, but by the number of students who find themselves, decide to attend an educational institution beyond high school and become productive citizens and future mentors, parents, teachers. Weigh this in the balance of your mind…On one side the number of boys who made Eagle Scout while I was a leader (23) + the number of students who passed through Wildstang (during the time I have been a team member) and went on to college (200+) against National Wins (1). Does it seem a little lopsided? In that 200+, two perfect ACT scores, numerous above 30 scores, MIT, Purdue, Bradley, U of I students, countless engineering graduates and I am proud of every one of them. Now I know a practice robot didn’t make those statistics but if one practice robot got one student to go to school and graduate it was worth every penny, every hour of time, every drop of sweat, every tear.
If you want to know how to build a more competitive robot, ask. GP demands we tell you, help you, guide you, teach you.
I completely agree with Al.
But I don’t really understand why this is such a big deal. Honestly, take a step back and think “How Important is it?” Is it really going to matter that much that some teams have an advantage over others? If FIRST is a program that brings students to real life problems, then this is a classic example. Some people will have the resources, and some wont. However, I still firmly believe that the resources are there, if you can find a way to attain them.
I guess that’s what I mean to say.
How Important is it? Is it important enough for you to go out and find the resources so that you can create a second robot? If you want to have the advantage, just like everyone else, it’s out there, you just have to try and attain it. And for the rookies, who will find it very hard, there is a great forum here that you can find veteran teams to help you with money, parts, CADs, etc.
It’s all out there.
On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being critically important to the future of FIRST, and 1 being completely inconsequential… I would put the practice robot issue at about a 3. Maybe a 2.
But boy does it make for great discussion!
Matt
Many people have already expounded on the educational benefits to the teams who employ practice robots. Also the concerns of less funded teams who don’t want to give away any more ground to the big budget teams is also valid. Perhaps there’s another solution and it’s one we have already tried.
Very few, if any, people will argue that being able to utilize a practice robot during the entire competition season (March/April) does not improve the performance and overall quality of a robot. It is inevitable that given extra time software will improve, mechanical issues will be solved, and drivers will become better able to control the machine. Thus if everyone had a practice robot the quality of robots attending competitions would be higher than it currently is. If no one gets any extra practice time it is likely the overall quality would decline. Whether it would be a large change is immaterial the point is simply that more time with robots leads to a higher level of competition.
Now for a question. Is it more inspiring, not only to current team members but to everyone watching and judging the program, to have robots that are well driven, break down less often, and can do what they are designed to do or, instead, to have more than a few robots who fail to even drive successfully in a match? Please don't take this to mean that I think a poor performing robot does not inspire those who worked on it, but, rather, that to many people, especially those who have not already been through the program it will certainly be more inspiring when the level of play is high.
To me a solution that brings up the level of the competition is infinitely preferable to one that is likely to bring it down. So, since some teams are unable to build a second robot to practice with why not let everyone have access to their primary robot. This is akin to some years ago when a repair/retest/practice period was included after each regional. Sure there are still problems, and many details that would need to be addressed. But, allowing teams a few days with their robot after each competition does some to level the playing field while giving everyone a chance to improve on their robot.
The major concern that FIRST seems to have with this solution is that it in essence lengthens the "build" phase of the season. This in turn increases the stress on the mentors and students who may then feel compelled to increase their time commitment. However there is no reason that every team MUST utilize any additional time with the primary robot. The fact of the matter is right now the teams that want the extra time and have the resources to get it are already lengthening the build season and many of them find it to also increase the benefits of the program. All adding access to primary robots would do is to allow other teams that wish to do the same, but lack the finances to also get this opportunity. Those who wish to abstain as they are doing now would still be free to do so. It's just that the option would be available to everyone.
As far as leveling the playing field goes. It is impossible to make the argument that a highly resourced veteran team would not be able to make more improvements or get better practice (VIA a full practice field) in this time period than a low budget rookie. So the "Have" teams will most assuredly still have an advantage, but the point is they have it anyway. The benefit of allowing access to the primary robot is small to a team that already learns 99% of what they were going to by using a practice robot. However the benefit to a team with no practice robot can be huge. Therefore despite being a rule which will continue inequity among teams it will reduce the gap and, as removing the gap is impossible, reducing it is the next best thing.
-Daniel Kimura
Isn’t that what this is all about?
[quote=“AHallows”]
[quote=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.[/quote]
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.
Matt
*
*
Isn’t that what this is all about?[/quote]
Good catch. I didn’t make this clear.
The point I was trying to make is simply this:
The students who are on teams that are big enough to support a second robot get this extra time to learn and become more competitive. The students who aren’t on large teams don’t get this extra time to learn and are at a competitive disadvantage. I am hoping that through we can steer this discussion to propose ways to still give students the additional experience they’d have by working on a practice robot while making strides to reduce the competitive advantage gained by having it.
I’m don’t think I’ve attacked much of anything. I’m just calling it how I see it - allowing a second robot is a loop hole (something within the rules that allows for an unexpected outcome). The ‘unexpected outcome’ is simply that only ‘have’ teams can get this critical advantage. Again, I’d like to see a way for this advantage to be evened out, either by removing it, or (preferably) by allowing it to happen for all teams. Note that my preference is a change of opinion from my original post. I’ve been persuaded by the benefits that have been discussed.
First, I never meant to imply that building a practice robot is not GP or unethical. We’d be building one this year if we could. Though I hope everyone has given me the benefit of the doubt, this isn’t about MY team not being able to build a practice robot, it’s about making the competition fairer and hence more competitive for all teams. I think that’s something that we should all strive to make happen.
As to the main point you wrote here… let’s be candid for a second: of course ‘have’ teams are more competitive because they are a ‘have’ team.
‘Have’ isn’t just about money… teams with incredible engineering talent, incredibly dedicated mentors, incredibly dedicated students, incredible facilities, and incredible machining resources will always build incredibly robots. This incredible combination along with building a practice robot is what makes ‘have’ teams competitive year in and year out. I don’t think making this obvious statement is a diservice to any engineer, mentor, teacher or student on your team. ‘Have’ teams didn’t become that way overnight; a lot of people put in a lot of hard work to make it so. Everyone knows that most of the ‘have’ teams are incredibly generous with offering their resources to other teams. There’s nothing shameful about being a ‘have’ team - I think every team should strive to become a ‘have’ team so they can share their ‘have’ with the ‘have nots’.
This is among the most legitimate arguments I’ve seen. +1,000 points to you.
That’s all folks,
Matt
I have been watching this thread with interest, and would like to thank all of you for a rational, well-reasoned discussion that has brought out a number of legitimate concerns and perceptions. But I do need to jump in for a moment and say tell Daniel that if Woodie Flowers were here right now he would probably give you a massive hug and “thank you!” for your comments. This is exactly the point that Woodie has been pounding into the heads of many of us for a while now - we have to look at the competition from a very broad perspective, and try to understand how to increase the impact it can have. There may be elements of the FIRST program that, at an individual or team viewpoint, seem to be contrary to what one might expect. But when the same element is examined from the viewpoint of a sponsor or competition audience or local community, all of a sudden the advantages become clear.
-dave
One thing that is the big equalizer at First competitions is the random pick of the partners. Last year in Atlanta our team made it to the Semi-Finals in the Newton division. We clearly were not the best robot in the pool, but we were paired with awesome partners for 2 days. In then end we picked a partner team that won their regionals but was in 50th place (or so) at the finals because of partner pairings that did not work out. So everything else said, about resources, rookies experience, it all gets washed out in the random pairings.