Re: Predictions Week 3: Creating Flow
 

From the statements presented here I would have to completely agree.

We had teams adding extensions to block full court shooters throughout elims, much to the dismay of the full court shooter. ::rtm:: It seemed easy for the inspectors to either reweigh quickly or look at their previous weight and determine they would still be in compliance.

Re: Predictions Week 3: Creating Flow
 

At GKC the (experienced and knowledgable team of) inspectors were available near the field during elims and were granting rapid re-inspections as needed.

Re: Predictions Week 3: Creating Flow
 

I'm not aware of such a rule, and we sure inspected a lot of ad-hoc changes during eliminations at GKC (well, my fellow inspectors did; I recused myself because the full-court shooter that they wanted to block was on our alliance. :D). Did you ask for the LRI (assuming this wasn't the LRI, of course) for a ruling? If not, I recommend that you politely do so if the situation ever arises again.

Re: Predictions Week 3: Creating Flow
 

I wondered if you were inspecting any of those blockers. Too bad there wasn't suddenly a limit on the amount of electrical and duct tape that can be contacting surfaces comprised of pool noodles, PVC, and lexan :rolleyes: .

Re: Predictions Week 3: Creating Flow
 

You can add things to the robot. You just have to make sure they are in compliance with the rules that's all.

Re: Predictions Week 3: Creating Flow
 

In retrospect, I absolutely should have taken it to the next authority level. I basically gave up because, once I asked him for the written rule, he agreed to comply with T10, just deliberately not in a rapid fashion. So his offer in the end was legal, and I wasn't sure what to do with it as far as appeals. (Other than regretfully decline and try to explain to my students that, not only would be not be able to try climbing right again, we might need to take the money for another camera out of our budget.)

Thanks for the feedback everyone; it's nice to know I wasn't off the deep end on this one.

Re: Predictions Week 3: Creating Flow
 

Heh, this is an interesting one. Having assisted in inspecting 1640's robot the first time, I really don't know what to say other than: impressive machine.

I'd like to have seen your 30 point climber work a little more though, but stuff happens...

I should point out that, if you ever have a problem with an inspection call, your first move should be to ask to get/cite the rules. There were some other calls over the weekend where teams immediately asked for the rule to be cited or cited the rule themselves, and got the proper ruling.

Just my $0.02

Re: Predictions Week 3: Creating Flow
 

First, thank you. That inspection was quite nice :)

Second, yes as to the rule, but I don't know how FIRST could regulate the amount of time the T10 reinspection takes--nor am I sure I'd want them to. Unfortunately, I don't see a whole lot of regulatory recourse for an unecessarily long (or for that matter, unnecessarily short) reinspection. I don't mean that as a complaint--if anything I guess I mean teams might want to keep such scenarios in mind.

Re: Predictions Week 3: Creating Flow
 

Siri, I'm sorry about your poor experience with this particular RI. Like Adam said, the apparent attitude of this volunteer was unacceptable.

In general, inspectors will do everything in their power to get teams ONTO the field, not keep them OFF the field. If you've ever hung around an inspection table on practice day, you'll see the LRI directing RI's to help teams that are in danger of missing their first Qualification matches.

Not every RI is perfect, and quite frankly some would be better placed in other volunteer roles. That is why every regional has an LRI in attempts to keep team experience as consistent as possible. If you are having trouble with a particular RI, please request the assistance of your LRI.

Robot Inspectors are your friend!

-Mike

PS. I personally had a blast robot inspecting for the first time this year. What a great way to get to know teams and the incredible students who know their robots so well! I highly recommend any post-high school FIRST alum give inspecting a try!

Re: Predictions Week 3: Creating Flow
 

This. Chestnut Hill was my first event inspecting robots (I've gotten inspected a few times before), and I had a blast getting to know some awesome robots. There were some top-notch machines at CH, especially some of the rookies.

Re: Predictions Week 3: Creating Flow
 

When something weird happens, send a pre-college student to the question box for further clarification.

Re: Predictions Week 3: Creating Flow
 

This.

When a questionable call is made, a call is missed, or we see something obviously illegal happen, we send a student (most often our driver) to the question box. Usually, he's sent there with/by a mentor who stays within ear shot and has a tablet with both the rules and Q&A at the ready. This doesn't always help with a call for the previous match, but we've found that with persistent questioning, the calls will improve over the course of an event.

Also, on the subject of changes and repairs done between elimination matches:

As far as I can tell, the purpose of T08 is to prevent a team from rebuilding/modifying their robot into something completely different over the course of the competition - not to prevent teams from making logical improvements to their machine as things break and don't work as intended.

In 1640's case, their machine had a camera. The camera was in a less than ideal spot, so they made the decision to move it. IMO, that's CLEARLY 're-configuring' a mechanism and therefore legal. It wasn't like they didn't have a camera to begin with and suddenly decided to add one... (as is often true with blocking mechanisms)

Any way, it seems like we should all keep our rule books at the ready. We're going to need them.

Re: Predictions Week 3: Creating Flow
 

I believe the purpose of T08 is to ensure that robots with alternate configurations have all mechanisms under the size and weight limits (and all other rules). In other words, if my team has both a climber and a shooter, but only one on the robot at a time, my robot has to weigh less than 120lbs with BOTH mechanisms (not just the one on the robot at any given point). If all of my mechanisms pass the inspection, as given in T08, I do not have to be re-inspected to change my configuration between matches.

Re: Predictions Week 3: Creating Flow
 

Looking at T08/T10 as a whole, I don't think the rule even does that; all it says is that using a mechanism not on your robot during inspection requires another inspection. In fact, if Siri's team wanted to only move its camera in a way that did not require any new parts, IMO that would qualify as a "reconfiguration" and should not require another inspection at all.

Re: Predictions Week 3: Creating Flow
 

Sean, you're right, T08/T10 serves that purpose as well, along with allowing a team to remove a broken mechanism, compete without it for some period and then re-install it after it has been repaired.

Regardless of how it's being interpreted., I think it's pretty clear tweaking a camera's position is legal under T08/T10.

I realize that I phrased my previous post a bit weirdly, and I was more or less trying to say that T08/T10 is there to prevent a team from changing their robot's configuration (I.E. removing and/or adding a climber or shooter) without having all mechanisms inspected as Sean said above. In any case, It seems that we're all in agreement that re-positioning of components on a robot is legal.