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Please note, per [R64] [R63], that for an 8-slot cRIO, the circuit may not exceed 16W. For a 4-slot cRIO, the circuit may not exceed 21W.
 
Smaller value Snap Action auto resetting breakers may be used on the PD Board for circuitry not defined above.
 
In addition to the required branch power circuit breakers, smaller value fuses or breakers may be incorporated into custom circuits for additional protection.

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Originally Posted by Chris is me (Post 1126672)

This is week 6 and they redefined a fundamental part of the game, impacting multiple teams' well thought out and carefully crafted designs. I'm far too frustrated to say more right now.

Originally Posted by Chris is me (Post 1126672)

This is week 6 and they redefined a fundamental part of the game, impacting multiple teams' well thought out and carefully crafted designs. I'm far too frustrated to say more right now.

Originally Posted by Cory (Post 1126697)

This was obviously a strategy that was never going to be allowed. Nevertheless they should have been more careful with their definition of bridge.

Originally Posted by Aren_Hill (Post 1126699)

If they respond twice, to two questions asking for the definition of bridge, with an answer that defines that ramp as part of the bridge, on a QnA forum defined as official interpretation, why wouldn't it be allowed?

Originally Posted by Cory (Post 1126715)

nobody should be surprised at this update.

Originally Posted by gurellia53 (Post 1126721)

We are given a definition. We design around that definition. The definition changes but the deadlines don't. Sounds kind of like engineering...



Ok, in the future I will push my team's designs away from being creative and no more thinking outside the box.

Originally Posted by Cory (Post 1126715)

Because the intent is clearly to be on top the bridge. If they dont want people hanging from the bridge why would they want you to drive under it to balance?

Its obviously a loophole that they mistakenly opened with their Q&A response.

Obviously you shouldnt have to judge intent and the Q&A needs massive improvement but nobody should be surprised at this update.

Originally Posted by gurellia53 (Post 1126721)

We are given a definition. We design around that definition. The definition changes but the deadlines don't. Sounds kind of like engineering...



Ok, in the future I will push my team's designs away from being creative and no more thinking outside the box.

Originally Posted by Cory (Post 1126715)

Because the intent is clearly to be on top the bridge. If they dont want people hanging from the bridge why would they want you to drive under it to balance?

Originally Posted by Joe Ross (Post 1126736)

Based on this statement, do you think that 179's robot will soon be illegal, also?

Originally Posted by Swampdude (Post 1126754)

We only touch the top of the bridge, so this has no impact to our strategy. However we were ready to troll if necessary... :D

Originally Posted by JesseK (Post 1126730)

Part of engineering is anticipating what your customers want.

Originally Posted by Swampdude (Post 1126754)

We only touch the top of the bridge, so this has no impact to our strategy. However we were ready to troll if necessary... :D

Originally Posted by its da PAT!!! (Post 1126841)

I remember in 07', we got to champs and they told us that if any part of a tube was touching your ramp then the lift didn't count. Which made we very mad.

Originally Posted by Swampdude (Post 1126754)

We only touch the top of the bridge, so this has no impact to our strategy. However we were ready to troll if necessary... :D

Originally Posted by Joe Ross (Post 1126736)

Based on this statement, do you think that 179's robot will soon be illegal, also?

Originally Posted by SuperNerd256 (Post 1126755)

No, since it's still supported 100% by the bridge. It is still touching the bridge part itself, and no other part of it. If what 179 did turns our illegal, I'm sending an angry email to FIRST, with a bunch of frowny faces.

Originally Posted by BrendanB (Post 1126847)

Wait, people were surprised by this update?

Originally Posted by lemiant (Post 1127045)

Even though this doesn't affect us, this makes me really mad :mad:. I remember when I was at champs in 2008 and one of the teams had a base that couldn't move and a crane that picked up the ball and moved it around the field. They won their regional, but the GDC screwed them between then and champs by changing the rules to make their strategy illegal. This seems wrong. Think how discouraging it would be to any teams who did use this strategy.


My 2 cents,

- Alex

Originally Posted by fox46 (Post 1127105)

Imagine you were designing a product for a customer and they said - "we want a machine which will be able to balance on this bridge".

What do you think your customer is going to say when you give them a machine that simply wedges itself underneath the bridge against the ambutments?

Really guys.. is it that difficult to see that this is not what FIRST wanted you to do?

Originally Posted by Taylor (Post 1127110)

Against my better judgement, I can say the precedent was set in 2010 when the GDC allowed teams to elevate from the vertical parts of the Tower.

Originally Posted by pfreivald (Post 1127125)

they never gave any guidelines as to how.

Originally Posted by Taylor (Post 1127110)

Against my better judgement, I can say the precedent was set in 2010 when the GDC allowed teams to elevate from the vertical parts of the Tower.

Originally Posted by pfreivald (Post 1127125)

That's an odd statement. It was never unclear -- the specification was that you are above the platform and not supported by another robot; they never gave any guidelines as to how. (Indeed, the only reason you had to use the tower is because it was the only possible way to do it, and not because of some rules specificity.)

Originally Posted by pfreivald (Post 1127125)

That's an odd statement. It was never unclear -- the specification was that you are above the platform and not supported by another robot; they never gave any guidelines as to how.

Originally Posted by Squeakypig (Post 1127130)

This is exactly what the teams who implemented this strategy were thinking. Word for word.

Originally Posted by Aren_Hill (Post 1127114)

If they said "balance this bridge" I would ask "what is the bridge?, and what is balanced?" both of which we had black and white definitions for in this case. No lawyering, no stretching, nothing.

If you wouldn't take that same approach what route would you take? The animation didn't show that?

Originally Posted by Taylor (Post 1127145)

Agreed. However, as was stated before in this thread, all of the animation, pictures, promotional materials, etc. from Breakaway showed an elevated robot as hanging from the top, horizontal bars of the tower. That was clearly the intent of the GDC; when an innovative yet similar and exciting strategy was employed, they accepted it as viable without issue.

Originally Posted by fox46 (Post 1127174)

The vertical bars in 2010 weren't made from a sheet of lexan...

Originally Posted by pfreivald (Post 1127125)

That's an odd statement. It was never unclear -- the specification was that you are above the platform and not supported by another robot; they never gave any guidelines as to how. (Indeed, the only reason you had to use the tower is because it was the only possible way to do it, and not because of some rules specificity.)

Originally Posted by fox46 (Post 1127196)

1/4" Oh really eh? And what experience/data is this based on? Because I can assure you that it does not. Furthermore, there is no such thing as "bulletproof".

Originally Posted by fox46 (Post 1127196)

1/4" Oh really eh? And what experience/data is this based on? Because I can assure you that it does not. Furthermore, there is no such thing as "bulletproof".

It also does not lay flat- it deflects balls.

Originally Posted by AdamHeard (Post 1127275)

Furthermore, 3/8" is legally bulletproof for small arms (paraphrasing modern marvels).

Originally Posted by Squeakypig (Post 1127279)

A team who spent the last 5 weeks designing, testing, and building a robot for this purpose definitely has a right to be mad. Maybe nothing will come of it, but by all means, they do have the right to be mad.

Originally Posted by Andy Baker (Post 1127350)

People and teams were seriously thinking that sitting on the plastic under the bridge was actually claiming that they were "balancing the bridge"? I'll try to apply this to the "grandma test":

team member: OK, grandma, we shoot basketballs to score points, at the end of the game, we get more points for being on the bridge and balancing it.

grandma: But, your little robot just parks itself under the bridge and sits there, while all of the other robots are trying to balance the bridge by being on top of it.

team member: Yeah, but we still count as balancing on the bridge.

grandma: No, that's silly, you don't.

Andy B.

Originally Posted by fox46 (Post 1127360)

Just because you hear it on MythBusters or the CD community describes it as such does not mean it is a widely accepted term. It is not glass and it is not bulletproof. It is known in the military as transparent polycarbonate armor. Calling it bulletproof- you might as well say it is magic glass.

Originally Posted by fox46 (Post 1127360)

Legally bulletproof for small arms? What is the legal definition of a small firearm? According to whom is it legal? Please show me where the law states this. I know in Canada we have no such laws stating what is bulletproof and what isn't.

Originally Posted by Mr. Van (Post 1127394)

This is NOT an unreasonable rule change.

Originally Posted by Mr. Van (Post 1127394)

Several things come to mind...

Andy Baker is usually right. In this example, he is. "Balanced" and "Supported by the Bridge" strongly suggest (to any reasonable observer) that robots must be on the bridge, or hanging from whatever most people would call the bridge. The ball deflecting panel below the bridge is just that - BELOW the bridge. Simply because the Q & A answered a question about what is legal to touch on your opponent's bridge doesn't mean that you should redefine other elements of the game.

"It is often easier to ask forgiveness than permission".

Hummm... often true, but not in this case. Teams asked if it was legal to use suction cups to adhere to the bridge surface. They got an answer. In FRC - ASK first.

This is NOT an unreasonable rule change. In Breakaway, balls were not allowed to go any further than 3" into the robot perimeter. It was in the Manual. It was in the animation. It was in the Inspection Checklist - there was even a special gauge that inspectors used to check for this. After the first week of regionals, there were so many penalties that the GDC changed the rules, allowing balls to roll completely under robots.

THAT was an unreasonable rule change. Basically the GDC said "we made the challenge too hard so we took away this requirement".


Patrick,

They gave the definition of "balanced" and that's the definition i was going by.
The important thing here is why was the change made? Because Breakaway was problematic as a game when it came to scoring in the first week. Many, many matches ended in 0-0 because of penalties. The reason the requirements changed is because FIRST is about Inspiration. It is not inspiring to watch robots run around and play a good game (Breakaway) and then have the scores negated by penalties. In the same way, it is not inspiring to see a robot "balance a bridge" by parking under it.

- Mr. Van
Coach, Robodox

Originally Posted by Andy Baker (Post 1127350)

team member: Yeah, but we still count as balancing on the bridge.

grandma: No, that's silly, you don't.

Originally Posted by fox46 (Post 1127360)

Not at all. I am not contesting its durability when tromped on by robots, I am sure it is plenty durable, although I wouldn't call it a bridge. I am contesting the statement that 1/4" lexan is bulletproof.

Originally Posted by fox46 (Post 1127360)

Keep in mind my job depends on building things that resist bullets among other fast moving projectiles...

Originally Posted by pfreivald (Post 1127401)

I don't even know that it *is* a rules change. It's a clarification, and one I feel is unnecessary because of the word "balance". Trollbots don't balance, they wedge. 179's robot balances.

Originally Posted by Paul Copioli (Post 1127477)

In 2002 I read the Q&A and convinced our team to change the robot design based on the Q&A. There was no team update in the manual as the Q&A response was simply a clarification. This was what was known as the tape measure rule. We decided against a tape measure because of the Q&A. The tape measure was legal that year even thought the Q&A clearly made it illegal. My response to that lesson learned ... don't read the Q&A. If it is important enough then it will make it into a team update.

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall (Post 325797)

In that year, there was concern about entanglement by extensible devices, like motorized tape measures; contradictory Q&A answers were posted, then the entanglement rules were clarifed and reinterpreted--but by the time the season came around, teams were regularly installing and using illegal ones (such as from vendors other than Small Parts), and getting away with it. Plus, the penalties for entanglement itself were not consistently enforced.

Originally Posted by FRCOps (Post 26908)

Starting with the answer to the question:
Yes, the rules on tethers have been loosened. And, we apologize. Why? We had to. Please read on.

Is this unfair to teams that correctly and strictly interpreted our rules updates as posted during the season? Probably. We know it, and please believe that we don't feel great about the way it went down. We're sorry.

Now, the details. We loosened up on the tethering rules, as a result of VCU. Want to know why? We asked a certain Pappalardo Professor of Engineering at MIT for his guidance. Maybe you’ve heard of him - Dr. Woodie Flowers. Dr. Flowers' comments to us at VCU were basically that if the teams have put time and effort into engineering a tether or tethered device, let them demonstrate it. We also thought back to the kickoff and Dean's approval of being able to be in 2 places at once.

So what the rule has become is that unless it's a piece of string or flimsy unprotected wire, it can be deployed. With Woodie's estimable guidance in place, the situation changed. (Please, don’t contact him.)

As a result, we are allowing the less egregious tethers to be used, because that is what we must do. It is unfair to the teams that avoided them expecting a strict rule interpretation up until now. But it is clearly worse to allow the current angst over this issue to continue.

Know that below the noise level here, we really are disallowing some mechanisms that clearly would cause entanglement. Also, the lack of resolution on the webcasts -for the 99% of you without a dedicated 1GB/second web server available - makes some decent tether designs appear as loose wire, when in fact they are protected, encased, hinged units.

That's a wrap. Sorry about the change in direction. Those team members that are extremely angry about this: please believe that the 15 people who make all of this happen are not trying to make everyone's lives miserable; we are as committed as you are to an excellent FIRST, and we want everyone's experience to be as positive as possible.

Originally Posted by gurellia53 (Post 1127444)

Grandma: That guy ran that other guy into the ground. He should be kicked out of the game.

Not Grandma: This is football, its called a tackle. That's their job.

Grandma: No, that's silly. That's not very nice.


Point: grandmas don't get sports.