What do you think?

FIRST General Forum
1

Posted by Michael Martus.   [PICTURE: SAME | NEW | HELP]

Coach on team #47, Chief Delphi, from Pontiac Central H.S. and Delphi Automotives Systems.

Posted on 7/30/2000 7:22 PM MST

I have brought up this subject before but here it goes again. I think this will stir things up a little …

What if …
We were given the 6 weeks to formally build a robot, like in the past.

What if …
At the end of the 6 weeks we could keep the robot and test, modify and practice then transport it ourselves to our first event and every event there after.

What if …
We had the robot the entire FIRST season in our unlimited control.

Would that be so bad?

This may solve many problems such as …

Some teams having their robot locked away for 4 weeks many times unfinished, un-tested while other teams are competiting.

Rookie teams making rookie mistakes on drive train and and other critical design areas with no time to correct or repair.

Some teams getting more driving time than others because of going to other events.

Some teams getting more repair/fabrication time than others because of multi- competitions.

And what about the teams only going to the nationals, 6 weeks in a box is a long time.

After all if this is going to be a SPORT then it should be treated like all sports are treated.

Football, Basketball, Hockey teams practice and improve all season. They do not lock away the players and forbid them from practicing and creating new plays.

Race Car drivers in the Winston Cup Series do not lock up their race cars between races and only work on them at the event?

I think it makes sense to have the highest quality, most refined teams and robots during the season. It makes a highly competitive event for all.

What do you think? What is your opinion on this subject?

2

Posted by Nate Smith.

Other on team #66, GM Powertrain/Willow Run HS, from Eastern Michigan University and GM Powertrain.

Posted on 7/30/2000 7:55 PM MST

In Reply to: What do you think? posted by Michael Martus on 7/30/2000 7:22 PM MST:

: I have brought up this subject before but here it goes again. I think this will stir things up a little …

: What if …
: We were given the 6 weeks to formally build a robot, like in the past.

: What if …
: At the end of the 6 weeks we could keep the robot and test, modify and practice then transport it ourselves to our first event and every event there after.

: What if …
: We had the robot the entire FIRST season in our unlimited control.

: Would that be so bad?

: This may solve many problems such as …

: Some teams having their robot locked away for 4 weeks many times unfinished, un-tested while other teams are competiting.

: Rookie teams making rookie mistakes on drive train and and other critical design areas with no time to correct or repair.

: Some teams getting more driving time than others because of going to other events.

: Some teams getting more repair/fabrication time than others because of multi- competitions.

: And what about the teams only going to the nationals, 6 weeks in a box is a long time.

: After all if this is going to be a SPORT then it should be treated like all sports are treated.

: Football, Basketball, Hockey teams practice and improve all season. They do not lock away the players and forbid them from practicing and creating new plays.

: Race Car drivers in the Winston Cup Series do not lock up their race cars between races and only work on them at the event?

: I think it makes sense to have the highest quality, most refined teams and robots during the season. It makes a highly competitive event for all.

: What do you think? What is your opinion on this subject?

Well, if this works(just installed Win2000, and IE doesn’t like posting to one of the other discussion sites i visit), here’s my 2 cents…I see the 6 wk limitation as part of the challenge of the competition, and part of what sets FIRST apart from other sports…as either Dean or Woodie said at closing ceremonies this year(I forget which one said it), the media covering Nationals this year stopped saying that FIRST was like sports, and that sports should be more like FIRST…there is a distinction between us and other sports already, and do we really need to become more like other sports to become more successful? At the same time, I disagree with the rule that FIRST put into place this year, disallowing fabrication of identical(key word) replacement parts after shipping. That’s just what I think though…

Nate

3

Posted by Bill Beatty.

Other on team #71, Team Hammond, from Team Hammond.

Posted on 7/31/2000 8:41 AM MST

In Reply to: What do you think? posted by Michael Martus on 7/30/2000 7:22 PM MST:

Mike

In high school sports there are limits on the practice periods before the beginning of a season. Your examples are for professional sports. These teams are high school kids and although the engineers are pros, they are not being paid to go at this thing year round.

My vote is for more strict rules on limiting it to the six weeks.

Regards

Bill B

4

Posted by Greg Mills.

Engineer on team #16, Baxter Bomb Squad, from Mountain Home and Baxter Healthcare.

Posted on 8/1/2000 6:14 AM MST

In Reply to: Six Weeks Is Enough posted by Bill Beatty on 7/31/2000 8:41 AM MST:

:

    Amen!!
5

Posted by Andrew Keisic.   [PICTURE: SAME | NEW | HELP]

Student on team #217, Team Macomb Royal Fusion, from Florida Institute of Technology and Ford Motor Company.

Posted on 7/31/2000 10:23 AM MST

In Reply to: What do you think? posted by Michael Martus on 7/30/2000 7:22 PM MST:

I agree with Nate. Although some teams lose out because they are not able to test their robot while others are, FIRST is not a sporting event where there are clear cut winners and losers; it is a exciting medium for students to learn and have fun. The goal is not to win or lose, but to experience the thrill. Part of the challenge is designing, building, testing, and perfecting a robot in a certain given time period. The goal of FIRST is to expose students to science and technology through an excting medium. The secondary goal is to give students the opportunity to interact with people in the industry and give them a feel for what it is like. True industry has deadlines and standards-FIRST should also have deadline and standards also.

Andrew Keisic

6

Posted by Amy .

Student on team #126, Gael Force, from Clinton High and NYPRO.

Posted on 7/31/2000 5:21 PM MST

In Reply to: What do you think? posted by Michael Martus on 7/30/2000 7:22 PM MST:

With regionals spread out over the month of March, I don’t think that not limiting designing, building, and debugging to six weeks would be effective or fair. For example, my team’s first opportunity to test our robot in actual competition was at the New England Regional, held March 30 to April 1. Teams that competed at, say, the Southesat regional March 9-11 might have had an advantage over New England teams as they would have had much more time to modify their robots before nationals. Although the New England teams would have had that much more time to test their robots before the regional, that doesn’t compare to seeing how your robot works in actual competition environment and being able to modify after observing its competition performance. Just my two cents…

Amy

7

Posted by Dominique.

Student on team #65, Huskie Brigade, from Pontiac Northern High School and GM Powertrain.

Posted on 8/1/2000 12:54 PM MST

In Reply to: What do you think? posted by Michael Martus on 7/30/2000 7:22 PM MST:

I see your point, but FIRST and sports are alot different. When you play a high school sport it does not take as much time and patients as a FIRST team does. When you have a FIRST team it takes alot of time from home and your family and it takes a great deal of patients. That is not the goal of FIRST either. It takes a great deal of money too. Plus it would not be fun if our robots worked all the time, thats the fun of FIRST is repairing our robots before the next match.

8

Posted by Janna.

Student on team #349, The RoBahamas, from International Academy and Ford Motor Company.

Posted on 8/3/2000 9:39 PM MST

In Reply to: What do you think? posted by Michael Martus on 7/30/2000 7:22 PM MST:

Hey everyone,

I’ve been thinking about this…and while a lot of people seem to think that 6 weeks is good, I think there are a lot more possibilities opened up with having the robot longer.

*There’s the obvious…people will have time to debug their robots. But this could help in a lot more ways than reducing stress levels at competitions. TV, for example is one way. Watching matches where one or two robots don’t work well and the others are slow or choppy isn’t going to appeal to someone who’s never experienced FIRST before. Seeing four capable, well-performing robots has a much better chance of doing that.

*If teams had more time to work on the robot, FIRST could be more creative with game design. The game could become more elaborate because the robots would be able to be designed and built to be more complex. Simplicity is good for things like scoring, but games could be more complex (bigger fields because robots would be built faster, more robots at a time because robots would be more robust) and still keep scoring simple.

*If FIRST made the game more complex, the new time period before the regionals (about two months) would be just as intense because there would be more complicated robots.

*And yes, it would be more stress to deal with, but maybe not as much. I don’t know why regionals start 2-4 weeks after ship date, but if it has anything to do with shipping…if teams could just drive their robot to the event (like a regional…not necessarily nationals 'cause that’s far) maybe the first regional could be moved up.

Yeah, this would be slightly changing what FIRST is about…but I think through more TV coverage, FIRST could appeal to more people, which is really the point: to get people interested in engineering. I think this is the way to go to get that coverage…to have more appealing robots and a more appealing competition, and a longer build period would help that happen.

Janna

9