Disc Carriers Part of Field?
 

I was checking out some match videos and I came across the Finals Match 2 at Oklahoma. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhrQNmzLuV4

At 1:45, you can see very clearly the Feeders have some sort of "disc magazine" that holds a nice stack of discs for the feeders to have quick access to. It looks like both feeder stations have at least one of these assemblies. I've been to two events so far (CVR and SAC) and haven't seen these assemblies at either event. Is this standard at other events? It seems like a great way to keep the discs organized and probably speeds up field reset.

Also seems helpful to those FCS teams out there ;)

-Mike

Re: Disc Carriers Part of Field?
 

At KC it was a 5 gallon bucket with one side cut out at each feeding station, as I recall.

Re: Disc Carriers Part of Field?
 

San diego had some neat custom made (?) wood racks, Phoenix had laundry baskets.

Re: Disc Carriers Part of Field?
 

At North Star we had boxes with 15 slots in it - almost looked like a rack for storing LP's (err... you're parents version of a CD, only much bigger than a normal CD. Maybe Laser disc would make more sense? Or is this all archaic technology to you kids now?) I would imagine this is all stuff that the various regional created to help field reset, and they probably even shoved them in the crates when they were done to pass them on to the next regional.

Re: Disc Carriers Part of Field?
 

There is no standard disc carrier shipping with the field.

I've mostly been watching Northwest regionals (Portland, Seattle, and Central Washington), and they had a couple of different designs made out of PVC. My understanding is that these were assembled and brought to the event/donated by volunteers.

If you call it "Vinyl" people will know what you mean, that's what the hipsters listen to nowadays.

Re: Disc Carriers Part of Field?
 

Yeah we used those a lot! Like previously stated it looks like it varies by event however i would like to think there will be some consistency at worlds.

Re: Disc Carriers Part of Field?
 

Plenty of plastic laundry baskets were used here in Michigan (at least at Kettering, West Michigan, and Troy).

Re: Disc Carriers Part of Field?
 

I saw the 15-slot wooden carriers at Inland Empire last weekend. Previously that field visited Hub City, Lone Star plus other venues.

Re: Disc Carriers Part of Field?
 

Why is this allowed? At the STL regional during the drivers meeting the head ref told us that FIRST made it illegal for any disk to be stack on the top of the feeder station. But on several web cast I've seen teams (HP's) have been doing the exact oposite.

Re: Disc Carriers Part of Field?
 

That question was asked at the GTRW driver's meeting, and it was explicitly allowed.

Re: Disc Carriers Part of Field?
 

I wonder what they will say at worlds?

Re: Disc Carriers Part of Field?
 

The explanation was that there was no rule in the manual against it (which makes sense). As long as the covers weren't ripped off, it was fine. If somehow the little corrected plastic covers got ripped off/removed, that would be considered field damaged.

Re: Disc Carriers Part of Field?
 

Q567 Q. Is it permitted to stack discs on top of the FEEDER slides and/or LOW GOAL? If so, is there a limit to the number of discs permitted in stack? (1 Follow-Up Questions)
FRC1640 on 2013-03-06 | 4 Followers
A. There are no Rules prohibiting TEAMS from stacking DISCS on the slides at the FEEDER STATION, provided they're not damaged. As stacking DISCS on the LOW GOAL could affect the sensors used to score the MATCH, TEAMS must not stack DISCS on the LOW GOAL. DISCS on the LOW GOAL, or for that matter any interaction with the GOALS, could be considered an attempt to change the score displayed on the audience display and could result in a YELLOW or RED CARD.

Re: Disc Carriers Part of Field?
 

I could be wrong, and obviously the Head Ref has ultimate authority, but I believe they are illegal if they are not provided by the field.

No where does it specify who provides the equipment, just that these are the only items which may enter. It is an exclusive list, and disc carriers are not part of it. Previous years such as 2009 specified bins used to store the game pieces for the human players. I have no problem with special devices being used by the field staff to help count discs, but if they are being used by human players during a match, I think T22 prohibits that as it's currently written. I do think they're a good idea, I just think the rules should reflect that, and they should be standardized. FWIW, I've submitted a Q&A about this.

Re: Disc Carriers Part of Field?
 

The carriers are intended to be used by the field reset crew, not the teams.

Re: Disc Carriers Part of Field?
 

Which is fine, but in the video Michael posted, they're clearly being used by teams during the match, and have been at several events.

Technically, no matter what they are (plastic laundry bins, custom PVC magazines, etc), they could be considered illegal, since there is no mention of any bin/container of any kind in the rules. The only rule is that discs start behind the alliance station. I don't think this is at all reasonable, but that's my interpretation of the rules. All recent years have either made specific concessions for containers provided for human players (2009), descriptions of the exact placement of the field elements (2011, 2007, 2005), or had all the pieces contained by specific parts of the field behind the alliance wall (2006, 2010, 2012).

Re: Disc Carriers Part of Field?
 

I was helping with field reset on Saturday qualifications at SAC, and there were boxes, but I believe only the field reset crew ever used them. The human players would move discs by hand, since an armful was plenty. However, the only FCS I saw at the event, Team Paradox 2102, was on the other side, so I don't know what they did. I think they were on the side the frisbees started on, though.

Re: Disc Carriers Part of Field?
 

In Orlando there was no such item that would carry the frisbees they were just given to the human players in upside down stacks. But in the Bayou regional laundry baskets were used.

Re: Disc Carriers Part of Field?
 

The wooden carriers were created by Bill Berggren (Mentor on 1538, 2012 WFFA and San Diego Regional Volunteer Coordinator). The carriers were created to help speed up the field reset process and were used at the San Diego and Inland Empire regionals. I believe they were at the LA regional, but I don't remember them being used. I think the plan was to send them to Las Vegas, but I'm not sure if that happened.

Re: Disc Carriers Part of Field?
 

There were beautiful wooden storage boxes at GTRW, which I believe had been fabricated by the crew at Montreal and put on the truck. They were boxes which held 15 each, for ease of the field resetters' counting, in each box. Teams were permitted to either take the frisbees from the boxes and stack them how they wanted, or to leave them in the box.

It seems like FIRST forgot a solution for the frisbees on the floor and the regional committees are trying to make things easier/less messy for the teams.

Hopefully there's a consistent solution once we get to Worlds - the boxes at GTRW are defintely an elegant fix, so I hope those keep happening. I know at Manchester, they just had cardboard boxes to stack the discs in so the floor wasn't covered. I like keeping them clean and off-the-floor. It just looks better.

Re: Disc Carriers Part of Field?
 

The boxes at Canadian events were definitely created either in Montreal or Waterloo. I was field resetting at Oshawa, and we just had some recycle bins. Try quickly identifying how many frisbees are in a recycle bin. With the wooden boxes, it was easy to see if field reset had done their job properly from the STANDS, never mind fieldside.

Re: Disc Carriers Part of Field?
 

The pvc ones from Portland also has a slot on the back for two colored discs, as well. the field reset was to brinh all six carriers and all frisbees to center field while robots were being taken off of towers, fill carriers and return to stations. Reset 4 on each side, and line up the rest as the new match robots were loaded. It looked pretty efficient.

They are being used in Las Vegas.