Opinions on the current BOM/CAW system

FIRST General Forum
21

I think the BOM/CAW is not a terrible thing to do. I did it for 2016 and 2017, and it’s a bit tedious but does help you appreciate what went in to the build of the robot (especially as a programmer).

But the issue that I have seen numerous times is that (as mentioned before), no one really reaches the $4000 limit. The BOM doesn’t accurately reflect the amount of money that was spent to build the robot. For example, a team that builds multiple robots and constantly iterates on previous designs could spend $7500+ on robot parts (I don’t have real numbers but that seems reasonable for a team with a lot of resources). But maybe only $2000 makes it on the competition robot and therefore on the CAW. Meanwhile, teams with less resources also end up with a $2000 CAW, but that $2000 was all they were feasibly able to spend.

So it’s not a bad exercise (in my opinion), but if it aims to limit well-funded teams, it fails at that.

22

I’m really confused by the bolded part. How is it that low resource teams have to buy more stuff because of the CAW? I really can’t think of a situation where building it yourself out of raw materials (or working with a sponsor to do so) would be more expensive than buying it COTS… COTS is pretty much always going to be more expensive when it comes to the stuff we buy, as you’re paying for the additional labor to convert it from raw materials.

How does the CAW benefit high resource teams? Is it because you can machine more instead of buying more expensive COTS parts? From the robots I’ve seen as an LRI over the years, 99% of them don’t come anywhere near the $4000 limit, so it really isn’t holding teams back. I could understand it being an issue if most teams were close (within 10%) of the limit, but most teams I look at are under half.

Honestly, the biggest advantage high resource teams have is building two robots to get around the lock up rules.

23

I’m confused now, doesn’t the bolded part say exactly that?

I mean, the CAW doesn’t force them to buy COTS parts; nothing does. But due to the increased expense of COTS parts, it may be more difficult for lower-resource teams to stay within the $4000 limit. But in reality I don’t think that limit is too much of an issue for most teams.

24

Typically when we talk lower resource teams, it’s a question a money. Teams that don’t have much money are low resource. Those that have a lot of money can get machines to do work themselves, and likely have that money due to good relations with sponsors that can provide work.

So the low resource teams are the ones that can’t afford to go over $4000 on the robot anyways.

A recent survey of MN teams showed that 1/3 of them have an annual budget of less than $10K. Half of that is taken up with the registration. Another good chunk likely includes food, team t-shirts, travel, and a tool budget. There’s no way those teams are spending $4000 on robot parts, regardless of the rules. Those are the teams we’re really talking about when we say low resource.

25

In my opinion, the CAW hurts teams who lack the resources (cash, humans, connections with sponsors, etc) by forcing them to spend a lot of time and energy to perform a LONG ritualistic exercise of collecting a lot of information which in turn is glanced at and ultimately a judgement call is made by the inspector as to if that team complies or not - “does this robot/part look like it cost more than an amount?”.

Let me preface this by saying I’ve never been an RI, let alone an LRI (maybe I should be one but that’s another topic). BUT, I’m typically one of the folks chatting with the inspectors at an event and asking about problematic teams so we can help get them running. In the past 2-3 years it seems to me that most often teams are help up because of CAWs, bumpers, and stupid electrical problems from my observations.

So a low resource team that has struggled to make it to the event (pay reg fees, get parts, etc) and have a competition-ready robot is rushing through the final stages of making bumpers and is also trying to complete a CAW simultaneously… sometimes on a napkin or sometimes in notepad (This is a joke Jon will appreciate). Not all teams are like this but a lot are.

Meanwhile, the high resource teams have spent a week or more prior to the event cataloging parts in SolidWorks or Google Sheets or whatever and have scoured the old KoP lists (that are @#@#@#@# near impossible to find by the way) and have had multiple students and mentors working on it. It’s complete and it looks nice and it might or might not come close to $4000 but it doesn’t go over it.

The truth is, inspectors look for a CAW but they rarely, if ever, verify completeness of it. Let’s all be honest about this. I’m not accusing inspectors of not doing their jobs - it’s just how that rule is dealt with and it’s ok.

As with most things in FRC, the rules act as multipliers for complexity when it comes to problems and masks for what the true costs are (costs being resources, of which cash is just one). The CAW isn’t just an itemized list with dollar values on it, it’s a resource-intense exercise for teams to complete - and often at times when they can ill-afford to spend those resources on such things.

26

I find this really interesting. Our team’s annual budget is somewhere in the range of $60K per year, and I try to make it a point each year to impress that number on my students in an effort to drive home the importance of sponsorships. I think it would be interesting to change the BOM rules so that each team’s BOM reflects their annual budget rather than the cost of their competition bot. Obviously the cap would have to be removed, but I think this would really help FIRST and FRC teams get an idea of what areas are more desperately in need of sponsorships. It would also be interesting from a statistics perspective to compare annual budget values with team performance.

Is there already a resource for this that I’m unaware of?

27

The biggest problem I have with the BOM starts because when I go to a regional, my purpose transforms from being our team’s build mentor to becoming a “No Robot Left Behind” mentor.

I go to the high-number teams that’s showed up with freshly assembled kit-frame and no bumpers. I watch. Then I suggest. I build some trust with them. Eventually I’m directing their kids how to put things together.

But they don’t have time. They’re working for an inspection sticker before six. It’s a rush. When the BOM is ‘Kit of Parts’, you can generally satisfy inspectors without much.

But after we get a sticker, I suggest mechanisms that we can put on their robots–take their team lead-people around and show them mechanisms on robots. I encourage them to decide what to add and then I provide material, tools and training --and occasionally cheesecake–to design and make mechanisms on the spot. We made two robots climb in Rocket City that didn’t show up with any semblance of a climber.

But suddenly we need a real BOM to pass inspection. Their kids don’t know what I’m talking about. They’re here to build a robot. Yes, I can attach one of their kids to one of my kids at a laptop and come up with something, but it’s really us doing the work then. We tell them the prices and sources of the parts we’ve loaned or borrowed externally. I don’t have extra kids either.

The BOM becomes a hassle. I understand why we have it and it’s a learning experience for at least one of their kids.

I would like a solution that would ease this problem.

28

I would recommend reviewing teams’ entrepreneurship award submissions. I don’t know if those are collected and posted anywhere, but teams probably have them posted at their websites.

-Mike

29

Having looked at quite a few CAW’s, I can tell you… for most team’s it’s not that long of an exercise. One kid makes it in an hour after they’ve bagged their robot. Their mentor comes in with his stack of receipts and puts prices on things and the team’s done. I’d love for it to be more involved (and it’s a season-long exercise on my team) because it tends to be more valuable for the team that way.

Those “high number teams” typically get a lot more leeway when it comes to the CAW. If a rookie shows up without one, it usually results in a discussion with the students and mentors, and borrowing one from an experienced team to go over it with them - it’s a learning experience, not an exercise in torture :slight_smile: I make sure the mentors and non-senior students know they have to do better next year, and that I’ll be looking for it. Perhaps the most surprising thing that happens every year are the students that come up with a CAW, or with properly made bumpers, or something else just to show me that they did it right this time… and I don’t even remember the issue from the previous year :stuck_out_tongue:

An frankly, it’s only been in very rare circumstances (I’m looking at you, Marshall!) where I’ve required an updated CAW during reinspection. One of those robots that was built with KoP parts, a couple of 2x4’s and some plywood wouldn’t need an updated CAW for adding a climber to their robot. I’d tell them to make sure to get those parts on their CAW before their next event (like champs if they happen to win the event or get RAS), but that’s about it. A team that was pushing the $4000 limit before adding an expensive looking doodad on their robot, on the other hand, would need to make an update. Something like that, done at the event, could be as simple as adding the new part in by hand on the printed out CAW, and showing a proper calculation for the new total cost.

30

One thing I would like to see is getting rid of the all former Kit items = $0, all first Choice =$0.

Lets actually make a CAW with actual cost of parts. Having a dozen Talon SRXs at a total cost of $0 is just a silly process of teaching people to find loopholes.

31

I think the CAW serves some important purposes, and there is legitimate reasons it should be kept around. That doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be significant reforms to the rules surrounding the CAW or the implementation of the CAW (I believe there should be). But as a fundamental practice, I believe the CAW should not only stick around, but possibly become a larger focus.

First off, theoretically it serves as a balancing lever between the “haves” and the “have nots.” At this point, it’s more of a token rule than a truly effective one, and it’s likely some serious reform to the rules is required if it were to serve its intended purpose. But even as a symbolic gesture it has some meaning. Ideally, we’d like the balance between teams to be in the effect of “the rising tide lifts all boats” rather than a cap that drags down the top. But anyone who’s ever been to sea knows that deep waters can feel a lot more choppy in fishing boat than they do on a cruise ship (let alone teams clinging to a raft). While the resources a team can pull in will always impact their performance in some fashion, as long as this remains an open competition for high school aged students, there should be some form of top end limit in terms of what is allowed to be spent on the robot itself. We have weight limits, size limits, and time limits. Cost limits should be part of the process as well.

Cost accounting and material selection are huge parts of real world engineering. Integrating them into the program in a formal manner is something that should continue, and possibly take on an increased role. In any professional engineering job, creating a list of materials is a critical task for a great many reasons. There are serious considerations given to total cost and individual component cost, both in terms of COTS items and custom manufactured ones. For example, anyone who’s attempted to design around purchase card requirements in order to avoid a lengthy contracting process knows what I’m talking about. Heck, even the strange loopholes and rules interpretations can be an all too familiar parallel to engineers in certain sectors.

I feel this type of analysis is hardly touched up on in FRC, and should not be eliminated. Like it or not, money is a driving factor in both engineering and society as a whole. Under ideal circumstances, I think cost competitiveness and the CAW should be taken into account for various engineering awards.

Now, how do we make the CAW better?

First off, as a token initiative, let’s go back to Bill of Materials. It’s a much better name than the Cost Accounting Worksheet. :rolleyes:

Next, the process should be streamlined and tools should be made available to help all teams complete their BoM in accordance with both the rules and intent of the rules in mind. I’m thinking something like an online tool that teams use to develop and maintain their BoM. Something like a shared web tool where teams can drag and drop common components into their list, as well as enter new items into the database that other teams can then investigate. Make the tool optional for a couple years to phase it in, but eventually make it the FRC standard for submission.

Finally, the rules should be updated. I’m not sure where things should land, but right now teams use all sorts of exceptions and exemptions to dodge around any meaningful cost limits. The $400 individual component limit should almost certainly be raised, especially considering vendors just find ways around it anyway. The fact the central robot controller (which is KoP exempted) doesn’t fit under than $400 limit even with steep FRC discounts applied speaks volumes. Secondly, they should find a better way to handle KoP exemptions and “counts as team member” labor costs. Part of me wants them to remove those exemptions entirely and then simply raise the limit of what can be spent accordingly. I don’t see reasons why a team’s business plan should mention a wildly different cost of parts that go into their competition robot than their BoM/CAW.

32

I’m not really interested in splitting hairs on what I meant by “low resource” team. My point is simple.

If a team without the fabrication infrastructure wants to build a similar robot to what we built in 2017, they will have to use predominantly COTS parts (including COTS gearboxes), therefore their CAW will likely be higher.

-Mike

33

Split hairs are valued at $0 too. :wink:

34

I just noticed something… All of the loudest voices against the CAW and against the $4000 limit and wanting to increase the $400 limit are from high resource teams. Teams that consistently attend multiple regionals, or always go to their district events, then pay for district championship, and then for champs.

Has anyone from a team with an annual budget under $10,000 spoken out against the CAW or price limits in these discussions? Because, quite frankly Michael, hearing someone from a team with an annual budget of $200k talk about how the CAW hurts low resource teams doesn’t make much sense. What sort of practical experience do you have to show that? How is a team that doesn’t even have $4000 to begin with affected by the limit?

35

2017 was the first season in which 1712 had an annual budget over $10K

36

Back before you were around, I was part of a team with an annual budget of around that. In fact, one year the BOM came out to sub $500, still had to fill it out despite the fact that it was clear we were nowhere near the cost limit. That year wasn’t a HUGE issue because there were 10-12 students on the team and a half dozen mentors. A few years later, however, those numbers had dropped by about half. Simply from a manpower perspective it had to be filled in and then was forgotten at the shop, and caused problems. Did it matter? Yeah, it was stress to the members of the team. But it doesn’t do anything to really level the playing field. 1678/118/67/254 can still order timing pulley stock and finish the pieces themselves whereas team XYZ has to order them from VP for 3-5x the price.

Tell me how the BOM helps?

37

You mean you noticed that those of us who spend a lot of time on CD and are opinionated are on high resource teams?

Correlation… causation… blah blah blah. :wink:

38

Wouldn’t you be over that in registration alone for 2016?

39

A BOM is a real-world engineering exercise. I’m designing ‘real stuff’ today and I get to make the BOM for my company.

My team is actually using a BOM in the design phase to assure we’re ordering the right stuff and I’ve put part-weight in them too to keep us on a weight budget.

But the BOM we use isn’t much like the FIRST CAW. We still have to enter that data to fill in that form.

Until today, reading this string, I never realized that it was intended to keep high-budget teams from spending more than others. No one has to put their practice field or their second (and third…) robots on that form.

I’ve always though it was to prevent single items from being over spent on. Like if you bought a laser-tracking system.

As mentioned here before, I agree that low budget teams are more likely to go to Andymark or Vex to get completed swerve drive modules or track drive systems and therefore have near-$400 items on the BOM, where teams with people and money would never consider buying their swerve.

But also mentioned here today, when we zero-cost all KOP items and First Choice items, it skews the BOM and makes it less an engineering tool and more a spending-record.

I’m from a $20k-a-year team and I think it’s still a useful thing.

40

Only after receiving additional grant money for qualifying for Champs. Our team budget did not include it originally, but fortunately our sponsors stepped up after we qualified.