Alright so my team is interested in forming partnerships with another team within our school district. Now would we have to combine our teams together where both the individual identities along with team number and team name would be required to change? Or what are requirements regarding the partnership?
Can you be more clear? you want to collaborate with another team and build 2 robots? or combine into 1 team?
If you want to build two robots. you can keep both team numbers and names.
If you want to combine into 1 team. then you have to choose what you want to do.
You can keep one of the numbers and retire the other one.
or you can retire both numbers and pick a new one.
Team name can be whatever you want it to be.
Ok well the original plan was to just to share resources and ideas to work together to build our own individual robots. But is it required that the teams have to combine?
No.
217/229 might be a good example here. Back in 2005, the teams collaborated and had identical (well, almost) drivetrains, and identical (well, almost) arm towers. But their robots were different. 217 had their tower at one end of the robot; 229 had theirs at the other end, among other differences that I’m sure existed. Other collaborations have tended to result in identical robots (254/60, 254/968, 254/22, 1114/1503/1680, 217/148). Did they build similar/identical robots? Yep. Did their teams combine? Nope, not fully–for many of those, the teams are quite a ways apart in terms of distance.
Only one of those above collaborations is still in full swing–but 217 and 148 still like to talk together and debate the game/strategies/robot designs, from what I understand. They’re also part of Team IFI, who love to make parts for each other.
You can collaborate and share resources/ideas/etc. to whatever extent you want without being forced to combine, or anything else really. There’s no requirements at all. FIRST leaves it open.
They actually did not collaborate on the drive at all and had radically different drivetrains. 217 had a six motor single speed, and I believe 229 was a four motor shifter.
Generally the teams stay distinct in our experience, and the CAD guys collaborate the most. Parts are split, but the team is distinct.
1569 and 3456 are one example of a two team close integration. We build two robots but share one room for a build site for both of us. We integrate closely, sharing ideas, resources, mentorship, and teamwork, but ended up with two distinctly different robots. Collaboration can be whatever you want it to be, if you want to have two distinct teams with a sharing of parts, or two fully integrated teams that function together, it’s up to you to decide. FIRST graciously leaves it all open in the spirit of collaboration and coopertition.
I believe 494 and 70 share the same ideas and build the same robot for each team, don’t they? Or was it just for 2010?
1323 and 973 colaberated this year. The minibot was the biggest diference but other than that we were nearly the same. Of course paint sceme was also different.
973 in blue:
1323 in red:
1323 and 973 came together this year. Besides the minibots we basicaly had the same design. Colors were biggest difference.
973 in blue:
1323 in red: