Re: cRio-FRC in BOM
 

I take issue with the sentiment...

When "lawyering" prompts an rule update that results in better understanding of the rule intent, or when it informs the more-cohesive development of future competition manuals, or when it encourages us to use rational thought to drive our own decision-making processes, it adds value to the program.

What else is this forum for, if not to discuss how to play the FIRST game?

Re: cRio-FRC in BOM
 

Unfortunately, no ... it's not an early April Fools joke (I wish it were).

Please tell me what the quantity of any item not on the latest checklist is. Be careful, as you may make some things legal that you didn't intend (like IFI controllers and early speed controllers).

I'm not lawyering. I'm actually hoping that they rule qty 1 on CRio-FRC (as per previous checklists) as an exemption.

Re: cRio-FRC in BOM
 

You are not making these items legal. They still must comply with all other robot rules to be legal to use on your robot. You are making them exempt from the cost accounting if they are legal and on your robot.

Re: cRio-FRC in BOM
 

I made this thread to point out a simple discrepancy in the rules. I never intended for it to be a serious discussion of whether the cRio-FRC is a legal part. I also asked for someone to Q&A this to simply bring it to the GDC's attention. As I said in the original post, the GDC obviously doesn't teams to include the cRio-FRC at cost in their BOM (unless it's a conspiracy with NI to make everyone buy a new cRio:ahh: ).

Re: cRio-FRC in BOM
 

Show me the rule that says you can't use an IFI controller as a co-processor. I personally believe that one could indeed argue that one could include the IFI controller in their BOM at a cost of $0.00 under the current rules. Some might say this is too ridiculous to be true, but it really isn't, especially when you consider the fact that some teams are using laptops on their robots.

Other items from old KOPs that they didn't intend to allow, such as motors and speed controllers not explicitly allowed were implicitly prohibited.


When language is used correctly, intent can be conveyed nearly perfectly. The style of the current manual was chosen in response to requests for a "simpler" manual. What people actually wanted was a concise and precise manual (i.e. one without such blather as the description of how to determine the frame perimeter by wrapping a string... ). Ironically, the debacle caused by the current manual could have been avoided if the people asking for precision had been more precise in their request. Instead of a highly polished, linguistically efficient manual, we were given condensed blather. The lesson to be learned in this situation is that one should know what they want before they ask someone to devote substantial resources to the fulfillment of said request. [/rant] //Another interesting factoid that pertains to this topic is that programming and markup languages are often used with greater precision than the writer uses when speaking their native language. This is extrapolated purely from casual observation, but it is still something worth thinking about.

Re: cRio-FRC in BOM
 

What else is there? Actions can be very ambiguous.
Nate, please don't take anything I write as a personal attack. That is not my intent at all. My intent is to expose a practice that I believe to be unhealthy for the program.

In other words, my beef is with the process, not the people.

Yes, we can gather technical advice and discuss the game here. But sometimes we go from the sublime to the ridiculous. OK, there is a discrepancy, but I'd love to see any LRI argue against using a cRio at zero cost.

Well, they had to appear on a checklist somewhere, at least can we agree on that? If so, then let's use two hypothetical "early speed controllers"*. Absolutely not legal if they are connected to an electrical circuit. However if I put them on a robot in a legal role (e.g., as ballast), their cost basis is ZERO. That's the point of this thread.

To find "the quantity of [an] item not on the latest checklist", you must find the most recent (=latest) checklist on which they were listed, and read the quantity from there.


.
* I haven't been around that long.

Re: cRio-FRC in BOM
 

Oh, I definitely didn't. Thanks for discussing this with me!

I agree that there's issues with "the process," but I don't agree that it is always unhealthy-- when it's used to drive improvement efforts, it's very healthy.

The GDC asking people to stop "lawyering" is the same as asking them to stop discovering ways to write a better manual.

Re: cRio-FRC in BOM
 

Yeah. As if that would happen.

I just think that if I were to write the rules, they'd be FAR worse that what we have now. I mean, writing a document that will be scrutinized to the utmost degree by tens of thousands of the smartest* people on the planet is a little intimidating, and a sure path to 'failure to convey meaning clearly'.

*and often literal

Don