Drivers' Meeting

[sw293]

What were the interesting questions, answers and interpretations? Is anything going to be remarkably different from the regionals to the championship?

[sw293]

What was said regarding extensions and contact outside the bumper zone?

[Swampdude]

Basically you're screwed if you have an apendage outside the bumper zone and someone either hits it or you hit someone with it, you get a 5 pt penalty every time theres contact. Also if you have an apendage that goes more than 3" into the ball chute your alliance gets dq'd, and that even if someone else pushes you causing the thing to go in. So if you have a thingy outside the bumper zone you better take it off or risk losing every match because of it. These are 2 brutal rules that will ruin many teams design strategies, that are being executed on late Thursday/Friday morning basically, giving these affected teams no time to make the needed changes. Too much too late IMO. Also you can't ride up a bumper on top of the bumper zone etc. But if a bot is on its side you may push them wherever you like. They also clarified pinning to exist everywhere on the field except when a bots wheels are all entirely off the carpet (on the ramp) then they are fair game.
The q&a got a little coarse where some students weren't too happy with these rules and Dr. ???Aiden took the abuse well. These rules acoording to him always existed, but to my knowledge were never enforced.

[henryBsick]

The drivers meeting was good, in the beginning. Dr. Brown did a wonderful job at doing what he is supposed to do in explaining the basic layout and gist of things as per the national event. He answered many Chiefdelphi questions promptly and concisely. However, when it came to the live QandA period, I was shocked. So many questions asked had already been answered or were what I consider common knowledge. There were however a few diamonds in the rough. On of which was from a member of team 4 who asked if an appendage broke and was the first part of said robot to contact another robot (being outside of the bumper zone) would there be a penalty. There answer was yes, a penalty would ensue. I don't know why I typed that entire question out, just an example I guess of one of the good questions.
I ended up having to leave early however when a member from a team not to be mentioned here, repeatedly asked for non bumper zone interaction clarification. Many of his questions were to the point of "if I repeatedly hit an opponent in an area where they were outside of the bumper zone will they continue to rack up penalty points?" I have no problem with the rules, they haven't changed, but this person's questioning over and over which lead everyone there to believe that this is their game plan for tomorrow (whether it is or isn't I will have to see) disgusted me, that is when my drive partner and I left.

Teams, drivers, coaches, read the rules and play with gracious professionalism in mind. I understand that the game is the game, but lets not turn this game to a 2005 who gets the most penalties.

Maybe I am over-reacting, maybe not. I have had a long day of making my robot the best SCORER (not de-scorer) it can be. I am off to watch match video and sleep.


-$.02 de Henry

[sw293]

Many of his questions were to the point of "if I repeatedly hit an opponent in an area where they were outside of the bumper zone will they continue to rack up penalty points?" I have no problem with the rules, they haven't changed, but this person's questioning over and over which lead everyone there to believe that this is their game plan for tomorrow (whether it is or isn't I will have to see) disgusted me, that is when my drive partner and I left.

Well you must have heard enough to get the answer to this question. What was his answer to this question?

Did he address the idea of incidental contact? They don't mention "incidental contact" four times in <G22> for no reason, so any discussion on the rule without mention of what constitutes incidental contact is incomplete.

[sw293]

Also: did he address extension contact inside the bumper zone?

[StephLee]

One new thing they're doing is putting a minor delay (about 10 seconds, we were told) between autonomous mode and the regular game, when they'll check the score and verify which alliance won. They said this was to eliminate matches where an alliance gets an unfair advantage because of a scoring screw up, and I completely applaud this change. We very nearly lost a match at Chesapeake (one point difference) because of that.

[Andrew Blair]

Well, that can go down at least as the most entertaining driver's meeting I've attended though...

[Guy Chriqui]

yeah the q&a got real harsh especially when that one guy asked for replacement cameras
the questions on a whole i felt were already answered in the beginning and just dragged on for some reason
btw i was that team 4 member and the fact that you can remember my question word for word astounds me =.

[sw293]

If contact inside the bumper zone precedes contact outside the bumper zone, is the contact considered incidental?

[Lil' Lavery]

The bumper zone rules have not changed since January 7th (with the exception of a Q&A clarification that stated a robot on the ramp that has contact, iniated by either party, outside of the bumper zone does not suffer a penalty for either robot, due to the unlevel surfacing), they just were not enforced very well at msot (if any) regional competitions. Go read the rules again, and ask a head ref tomorrow if you still have questions.
The spirit of the rules, at least how I and my team interpreted them, was to minimize any potentially harmful contact by forcing the elimination of contact outside of the bumper zone. This was mean to keep all hits "clean" body-on-body hits, nothing that can spear, impale, tip, trip, flip, dent (if you actually have your bumpers mounted, our .75" bend into our right side lower box channel shows why you should have them, and we now have them attached again), or otherwise harm another robot.

[sw293]

On of which was from a member of team 4 who asked if an appendage broke and was the first part of said robot to contact another robot (being outside of the bumper zone) would there be a penalty. There answer was yes, a penalty would ensue.

This contact would certainly be more incidental than one robot with an extension deliberately hitting another robot with an extension, extension-to-extension. However, the former is not incidental (if it were it would not be penalized), and it seems that this (http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread.php?t=345&highlight=incidental) answer from the Q&A implies that the latter is incidental (It reads:"The second bullet of <G22> states "incidental contact will not be penalized". If two robots with extensions contact exclusively outside the bumper zone, there would be no penalty.")

I'm confused :ahh: .

[sw293]

The bumper zone rules have not changed since January 7th (with the exception of a Q&A clarification that stated a robot on the ramp that has contact, iniated by either party, outside of the bumper zone does not suffer a penalty for either robot, due to the unlevel surfacing), they just were not enforced very well at msot (if any) regional competitions. Go read the rules again, and ask a head ref tomorrow if you still have questions.

The rule might not have changed (actually it was changed on Update 12) but interpretations of the word "incidental" may well have, and I would like to know what incidental means. I've read the rules enough to know that "Rule <R35> in Section 5.3.4 establishes ROBOT BUMPER ZONEs" is not the case (Robot bumper zone is defined in section 4).

[Tom Bottiglieri]

What was the ruling on drivers stepping over the line? 0 or the buzzer?

I couldnt make it to the meeting.. team dinner..

[Mark McLeod]

Our driver relayed to me that you aren't to go over the line until the clock changes from 0 to 40. Then you can go.

We got to the team dinner late:)

[Ricky Q.]

Our driver relayed to me that you aren't to go over the line until the clock changes from 0 to 40. Then you can go.

This is to accomodate the new "delay" to check auton scores.

[David Brinza]

... On of which was from a member of team 4 who asked if an appendage broke and was the first part of said robot to contact another robot (being outside of the bumper zone) would there be a penalty. There answer was yes, a penalty would ensue. I don't know why I typed that entire question out, just an example I guess of one of the good questions.
...
Teams, drivers, coaches, read the rules and play with gracious professionalism in mind. I understand that the game is the game, but lets not turn this game to a 2005 who gets the most penalties.
...
-$.02 de Henry
I think the question by our team captain was more general and the answer, perhaps, more disturbing:
If something breaks on a robot such that it becomes an appendage, would penalties be incurred by contact with an opposing robot outside the bumper zone? Answer: Yes.

So, if you design and build a robot that is not intended to ever extend beyond the bumper zone, but a mechanical failure occurs such that now your robot has a loose piece that could contact a opposing robot outside of the bumper zone, you are now vulnerable to being penalized should the opponent drive into your broken part...
So the guy who was worried about his camera getting whacked better hope that it falls to the floor, because if the opposing robot who knocked it loose in the first place now comes back and hits it as it swings around by its cables might be able to collect penalty points for his alliance. It can't be this twisted, can it :ahh: ?

Probably not. However, I could imagine a portion of a shooter, or a piece of lexan coming loose from a robot and creating the potential for this penalty. So if this happens to your robot, you need to go on the defensive to prevent robot contact with your broken part. Get up your ramp and camp!

[UlTiMaTeP]

This driver meeting thoroughly disgusted me.

1. Any robot that has anything that extends past the original size constraints (28x38x60) (not in the bumper zone) and touches by accident, coincidences or on purpose, will be penalized. The word incidental is not used in its proper definition in the rules. The definition of incidental touching means a robot will not be penalized if it touches the bumper zone first, stays in contact with the bumper zone, and then touches higher up. True incidental touches WILL STILL BE PENALIZED. That means if you have a dumper, expanding hopper, arm, wing, blocker, stick, tie wrap, something that sticks out by accident, you will be penalized if someone else touches that object.

2. Clarification of pinning rule. You can pin a robot for a few seconds and then you have to back away in any spot except for on top of the ramp. The clarification states that if you push a robot on either ramp, you can hold it forever. This gives big power robots lots of room to do whatever they want. If you were to push a robot up the ramp and say it was sideways you could hold your robot against it the entire match and get the points for the robot as well as "disabling the robot the entire match" Even though this rule may have been in the book the entire year, this is a serious blow to GP.

3. Bumper zone contact, (please if anyone knows this better than I do please comment) As I heard, if a robot pushes another robot in any position as long as the pushing was done in the bumper zone, and the opposing robot flips over, it is not the aggressors fault. Another serious blow to GP. This is giving the ability to easily disable a robot for the entire match. With the sharp ramps this year pushing a robot onto the ramp makes it very easy to tip. This makes me feel like this is turning into a destruction derby.

4. Autonomous and Corner Goals, Intentional ramming in auto is now illegal, and I firmly back this rule and this was a very good one. While that is a great addition, The rule considering robots protruding into a goal is absolutely ludicrous. Obviously the protruding rule was based first on safety. But the consequences are terrible, an entire robot alliance DQ'ed? While we can legally tip other robots. But the real ugly problem comes in with robot aggressors. If a robot were to push another robot into the goal, well you think there would be no penalty or maybe a penalty against the aggressor, right? Wrong. The team that gets pushed in gets the penalty, most people have pieces on their robot that extend more than 3 inches in a certain angle or even straight on. You could so easily push a robot straight into a goal beyond the 3-inch penetration with no effort. This is absolutely ludicrous, allowing robots to disqualify robots on purpose. We might as well have not put the time, effort, blood, and sweat into making shooters and ball handlers.

I would like to take this time to thank all the volunteers and referees that make FIRST possible. One of the great things I have learned this season is how to work with material handling. I am so thankful for that, FIRST basically gave me the opportunity to work on it. I feel with this current rule I believe everything has gone to waste. Many, many of us were not happy. Gracious for all the time the refs put in, but not happy campers. The situation has upset some teams designs so much, some feel that this group of new additions/clarifications have turned FIRST into battlebots. Some go so far as not coming back next year. This is a dire situation that needs to addressed for the sake of Gracious Professionalism. I know we can all do better than this.

-- FIRST team alumni, FIRST team mentor, FIRST volunteer, and FIRST Vex Judge
Peter

[Allison K]

Our robot has no apendages, and it would have to break in a pretty interesting manner in order to have a psuedo apendage, so I wasn't paying extremely close attention to all of the questions regarding them, but it seemed to me that a lot of the confusion was in the wording. I think what the ref's meant is that any contact would be subject to a penalty, whether it's actually called is at the discretion of the ref's. Therefore, if Team A has an apendage and Team B keeps running into it, it would seem logical that Team A would not be penalized, even though it is possible according to the rules. I could be wrong, but that conclusion makes the most sense, and seems to be consistant with previous FIRST competitions.

[sw293]

The definition of incidental touching means a robot will not be penalized if it touches the bumper zone first, stays in contact with the bumper zone, and then touches higher up.

This the definition of "incidental" the refs are using, right? So this type of contact is not penalized, correct?


Intentional ramming in auto is now illegal, and I firmly back this rule and this was a very good one.

As recently as this Q&A (http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread.php?t=770&highlight=ramming+autonomous) "Robot strategies intended to disrupt the aim of an opposing robot are acceptable and to be expected as long as they are not excessive." Where in the rules has this changed? The refs are not banning all disruptive autonomous strategies despite the rules and the Q&A are they?

I'm really confused :ahh: :ahh: .

[UlTiMaTeP]

The refs are making new rules as the game goes on. And they must be using the elastic clause on the word excessive, to mean ramming.

[Heretic121]

all i say to the whole waiting until the clock changes it BAH TO YOU REFS!!! its really gonna be hard for all 300+ teams to change what they learned at other regionals just for this one event... i reall REALLY dislike this one descion but everything else went great
and am very happy Dr. Brown is taking over since benji is MIA... cant wait for tommorows now todays competition...

[Cory]

The refs are making new rules as the game goes on. And they must be using the elastic clause on the word excessive, to mean ramming.

You're kidding right?

Just because you don't like how the rules will be called doesn't mean that they haven't existed for the last 4 months.

[UlTiMaTeP]

I 100 percent agree with that, as stated in my earlier post.

[David Brinza]

Intentional ramming in auto is now illegal, and I firmly back this rule and this was a very good one.
Just to be clear about what was said at the meeting - intentional ramming in autonomous mode only applies when the offending robot performs a long-distance, high-speed ram into a robot that hasn't moved from the starting box. If a robot intercepts a robot that has moved out of the box, all bets are off as far as intentional ramming. So if your robot consistently drives to the edge of the ramp to pour in ten balls, and a defending robot knocks you out, don't expect a ramming penalty to be called.

[UlTiMaTeP]

Yes if it was accidental it is fine, I believe, disruption of auto will be ruled as fine, as long as these robots aren't driving full speed into another bot. It may be case by case depending on the infraction after the opposing bot is out of the box. We will have to see how it gets ruled if another bot rams one at fullspeed out of the box.

[David Brinza]

"Robot strategies intended to disrupt the aim of an opposing robot are acceptable and to be expected as long as they are not excessive." Where in the rules has this changed? The refs are not banning all disruptive autonomous strategies despite the rules and the Q&A are they?
It seems to me that a robot that is stationary in its starting box is protected against a high speed smash. An acceptable disruptive autonomous strategy (as I think may have even been described in the meeting) would be for the disrupting robot to slow down just prior to contact with a stationary autonomous shooter. Programmers, sharpen up those lines of code!

[UlTiMaTeP]

It seems to me that a robot that is stationary in its starting box is protected against a high speed smash. An acceptable disruptive autonomous strategy (as I think may have even been described in the meeting) would be for the disrupting robot to slow down just prior to contact with a stationary autonomous shooter. Programmers, sharpen up those lines of code!

I think you hit the nail on the head

[henryBsick]

Well you must have heard enough to get the answer to this question. What was his answer to this question?

Did he address the idea of incidental contact? They don't mention "incidental contact" four times in <G22> for no reason, so any discussion on the rule without mention of what constitutes incidental contact is incomplete.

Incidental contact was identified as an harmless brush opn the way by. I actually stayed for all of that persons question, and left as Aiden moved on to the next person.

[Mark Pierce]

An acceptable disruptive autonomous strategy ... would be for the disrupting robot to slow down just prior to contact with a stationary autonomous shooter.
Nope. The earlier post is correct. It appears that essentially "all bets are off if the target has moved out of the starting box."

Almost nothing in my 8 years of FIRST has been so discouraging as to be tipped in autonomous two matches in a row. I've got mentors and parents asking how this is different than Battle bots. I sincerely wish that when the first questions were asked that FIRST had changed the rules to prohibit autonomous motion on the defensive side of the field. At least at the regional level, teams were afraid of a DQ or other penalty.

[Spikey]

Wow that rule for expanding bots is terrible! If any of you have seen SPIKE we expand with our net, and now people can just hit the net, and we get penalites, that is really dumb. Why start using this rule now? It was not in effect at the two regionals we attended. :mad:
Luckily we were able to constrain our expanding hopper, but this new rule/interepretation is ridiculous.

[TomBurr]

I, too, was thoroughly disgusted by the drivers meeting. However, I feel like I am against the majority. I was not offended by the rules, they are what they are, and there is little use to arguing with the referees over moot points. I was shocked by the complete lack of gracious professionalism by some of the drivers/stage crew. No respect was shown to the referees or FIRST.

Worst of all though, everyone applauded the repeated, unsportsman-like conduct. I've seen a lot better out of first.

Also, everyone needs to remember that you are representing your entire team, not just yourself.

[sw293]

I, too, was thoroughly disgusted by the drivers meeting. However, I feel like I am against the majority. I was not offended by the rules, they are what they are, and there is little use to arguing with the referees over moot points. I was shocked by the complete lack of gracious professionalism by some of the drivers/stage crew. No respect was shown to the referees or FIRST.

Worst of all though, everyone applauded the repeated, unsportsman-like conduct. I've seen a lot better out of first.

Also, everyone needs to remember that you are representing your entire team, not just yourself.

I was not there, but I can understand people getting upset when they are forced to completely change their strategy on very short notice when FIRST could well have issued a "point of emphasis" in an update or the head ref. In any event, I try to avoid accusing others of lacking gracious professionalism. Here are a couple of spotlighted quotes that I find relevant (though I based on what I just said I can't really associate myself with the first one):

It's not very graciously professional to point out the un-gracious professionalism in others.

- Only think of Gracious Professionalism as a standard to work toward personally. - Never use it as a gauge to point out someone else’s shortcomings.

[anna~marie]

it was long and spiteful, full of people who need to learn to read... and it made me miss dinner with my team >_<
Seriously, the manual is out for a reason... um... to read it maybe?

[Ian Jones]

it was long and spiteful, full of people who need to learn to read... and it made me miss dinner with my team >_<
Seriously, the manual is out for a reason... um... to read it maybe?
No one said you had to be/stay there.

I was the kid from team 461 asking lots of questions about incidental contact, I just wanted to know if our wheelie bars (to keep us from tipping) would be penalized for getting ran into/over. We never got a penalty the entire competion for anything, and I don't think anyone got penalized for the incidental contact situation, but someone else could probably shed more light on that situation.

Keep in mind, everything has to do with what the referees see, and it is probably a lot more complicated than you think it is.

[Joe J.]

I was very disappointed watching the driver meeting. First off people were asking questions that were clearly stated in the manual. The there was one individual who was quite rude when asking their questions.

Beyond that there were quite a few good questions that were asked.



I would like to thank the Head Refs for taking the time to answer our questions, even though I think some abused the privilege.



Oh and one other thing, I read some ones post in response to some one saying they missed dinner for the meeting, that said they could have just left. In my the way I see it the Refs were taking their time to be there and couldn't leave, and I found it rude that people got up and left. Being a driver means taking extra responsibility, responsibility to attend driver meetings and staying through them.

So again thank you to the Refs for doing such a great job all weekend.

[Heretic121]

all i have to say is i was very upset that TWICE to us inparticular were not only entagled but flipped by an "apendage" and there was no call... no penalty... no dq... no nothing... if we werent flipped it wouldnt have been a blowout like it was i was just very upset so much time was taken to clear those rules and none of them were called... =(

[henryBsick]

I noticed this. I saw a lot of appendage interaction with very little to no calling. I know that personally Bunney, the 222 operator was a quick trigger on getting our flipped back up when we came near an opponent.

[ScoutingNerd175]

Wow that rule for expanding bots is terrible! If any of you have seen SPIKE we expand with our net, and now people can just hit the net, and we get penalites, that is really dumb. Why start using this rule now? It was not in effect at the two regionals we attended. :mad:
Luckily we were able to constrain our expanding hopper, but this new rule/interepretation is ridiculous.


Seeing Spike's robot with the smaller net was thoroughly depressing. At Chesapeake, everyone knew who Spike was. They had a great machine and I applaud them for playing hard. I am sorry that they had to change an excellent robot to conform with rules that had been enforced differently at previous competitions. I know that with the game changing every year and all the different people responsible for enforcing the rules, these sorts of things do happen. Thanks to the refs for all their hard work.