First Robotics and Me

A second week of the 2013 Build Season is wrapping up and since a big chunk of my time has been devoted to it I may as well comment.

The backstory:  I first started out in robotics by joining my high schools FIRST Team.  For those that don't know FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is a non profit robotics competition.  There are various levels of competition ranging through all pre-college level school ages.  I started at the ripe age of 16 as a junior in high school doing FTC, and FRC.

Now my team usually recruited freshmen most heavily but I had several friends talk me into joining and a couple meetings later I was hooked.  The problem with joining as a junior is that most students by their junior year have had plenty of time to get trained on tools, and have learned enough about the different tools and techniques used for FRC specific construction.  The good news was I joined for the inception of my schools entry into the FTC program as well.  I learned quickly and worked more hours then anyone else on FTC and ended up becoming captain of that team.  My experience with tools and general construction, as well as far too many hours building LEGO contraptions growing up, gave me a leg up compared to the rest of the rookies and by the time FRC rolled around I was ingrained into the core builders of our bot and had already secured a pit crew position.

The current:  Flash forward 6 years and I'm back and mentoring my old team.  Its a harsh moment to realize that I knew as much as the current students when I was there, and how much more they have to learn.  Its not for lack of availability of the information but simply a lack of a good way to present it.  I'd need a whole separate post to deal with my thoughts on this so back to the real problem.



Now I've been working with the team of students for the last two weeks to try and break down this game and create a robot that will play the game effectively.  By reading forums like chief delphi, and talking to members of other teams, I've developed a feeling on how the Build Season is progressing.

This game is freaking TOUGH.  

The general feel is that teams there is a great divide between those with a lot of experience and those with less.  Frisbees seem to be a significantly easier to deal with game piece then previously anticipated and teams that have been putting their resources into handling them and shooting them to the goals are finding great success.  The hanging from the pyramid at the end of the game on the other hand....

My read on the situation is that there are three real camps to the hanging world at the moment: Those that are realistic about the difficulty and the odds of success; Those that have an idea and have become blinded by the cool factor and are going for a bonus with a device that will ultimately fail or never work to begin with;  And my favorite the silent but successful.

The first group is by far the most common in the digital world and comprises a lot of well respected mentors from a variety of top tier teams.  The general feel coming from these people is "Stop over estimating and be realistic."  Basically that climbing for the top of the goal is by far the most restricted and one of the most difficult tasks ever presented to FRC teams.  Its a logistical nightmare dealing with the rules, Q &A, and the rule changes that have come out.  Combine that with the shear difficulty of the physical task and you have yourself a problem.  Teams are going to fail.  And by fail I mean fall.  Thats a 150 lbs. of robot falling from at a low point for where teams are aiming, 5 feet in the air.  Wheels will break, frames will bend and sometimes shatter, electronics may be crushed.  The general gist being that robots are most likely not gonna survive a failure at this task really well.  That is the point that this group is making.

The second group however can be summed up as the wide eyed sophomore.  This group is basically the group that believes everything on paper is gonna work.  My read on their feelings is that many of this group has heard someone on the team say "We're gonna hang"  and in the best case assumes that they mean at the top of the pyramid and is wrong.  At worst it means that a much more significant portion of the FRC robotics community is building for the 30 point climb robot then I anticipated.  In the latter case a larger portion of the teams are gonna feel the pain of their robot failing, and in odds are too many cases they will have to suffer through the pain of having an unfixable amount of damage end their competition season early.

The third group is the most curious.  Personally I'm forced to leave my team 1/3 of the way through the season today which, as disheartening as that is for me on a personal level, is nice because I'm leaving them with a mechanism designed in CAD and roughly prototyped that is far simpler then most and will effectively climb the pyramid on the outside corner.  I will refrain from any guarantees because experience has taught me that nothing is final until it works in the final tournament at competition.  The reason this is curious is because the way I feel about it, is the same way I feel many other successful teams must feel about it.  Its a solution that by comparison to the things I have seen and also thought up is drastically simpler.  Its not the easiest to build, and its not gonna be perfect, but its easy enough that I can leave with faith that the team will finish the solution and make the robot work.  This puts me in the third group because experience has also taught me that when you have something that works.... SHUT UP ABOUT IT.  The exceptions being that good teams usually talk to each other, and the solution will probably make it into a few of our friends hands as well.  But generally speaking these ideas wont hit the web early enough to be copied by many teams.  

In short this season leaves me optimistic, but not overly enough so to put me in category 2.  I'm excited for regional play and especially to see what solutions more elite teams put on the field.  Falls will happen and this season will be a cruel mistress to those that are not cautious.  The game will be exciting to watch and teams will be excited for the next season at its conclusion, but will be a cruel reminder to some that working within your capabilities is a must, no matter how good you are at stretching them.