Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

We have a practice bot in the back of the pickup truck. It's a spare-parts machine at the regional. I probably don't want to leave it in the back of the truck, but it might be hard to put it inside the cab on the seat. The hotel is a mile away.

Hmmm... where?

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

Remember, you can only bring 45 lbs of manufactured non COTS items into the arena. So having an entire robot of spare parts is not really legal.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

I might be a little wary of Q416, where a bot for a Chairman's presentation was ruled to count toward the 45 lb allowance.

How much does the bot weigh?

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

You will want to have your 45lbs selected and removed prior to going to competition. The rules state that you cannot work on the robot mechanical components outside of the pit or outside of the pit operating hours (no in-hotel work).

If you are bringing the entire robot, it would be best to leave it in the hotel. Thefts from parking lots are unfortunately, not uncommon.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

Store it at your school, your shop, your sponsor's facility, wherever you normally keep it. Don't bring it to a regional.

While you can use a used, unmodified, COTS part that was on an old robot, as a spare, you cannot store it on the robot until you need it. It's not a parts rack.

A manufactured part, even if it's identical to one on your competition robot, can be a spare part, but it counts under your weight allowance and must be brought into the pits as a part, not as a part of a robot.

Think about what you are asking. If every team brought a spare or practice robot to a competition, where would they put up to 60 extra robots?

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

Dude, if what I read here is accurate, you need to understand that that's not ok. My team has a practice bot too, which we've used for drive practice and R&D. We will take our spare parts and improvements off of it and take them to competition, leaving the rest behind. 45 pounds only, excluding the bumpers, batteries, and COTS straight from the box. That is a generous rule and it's very clear.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

Sorry to say it OP, but I'm going to have to agree that this isn't legal (unless your practice bot is under 45 pounds). Also, if you declare your practice bot as part of your withholding, you can't do anything to it in the parking lot (rule T11), or after hours (rule R15).

If you think you're going to need some of the parts off that bot, you should really go talk to the officials at the event, explain the situation, and (if they allow it) strip the needed parts off the practice bot and bring them into the venue as your withholding allowance. The rest of the bot can then be left back at the hotel.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

Take the top half off and bring it in (it's definitely under 45 lbs). Leave the drivetrain; as a KOP drivetrain there are bound to be folks with spare parts.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

Is the KOP drivetrain not a COTS device? Granted, it is assembled, but dismantled anything unmodified will not count to the 45lbs.

What I see teams do is keep the practice bots in their trailers and send a few kids out to the parking lot to recover parts as needed, so only weight you actually need is ever brought in.

I your situation, just dismantle the systems and bring in what you expect to break (hard stops on catapult, out-of-frame ball intakes etc, and as much COTS parts you can otherwise) and perhaps leave the robot in someone's hotel room (we built our 2012 practice robot again in the hotel during an offseason event, there is definitely room)

...

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

The regional is in the building, if you keep the robot out of the building you should be ok as long as you don't bring it more than 45 pounds of it into the arena/school. Can those of you who are saying that this is illegal, can you please point to the rule that says what defines an event and what defines the 45 pound allowance that backs you up?

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

This in my opinion is against the rules and is definitely against the intention of the rule.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

The whole "practice bot in a trailer" thing may be why they added the word "static" to the definition of the withholding allowance. I don't remember that word being there before.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

Is there anything left truly unmodified in the KOP drivetrain? Enlarge a hole, or make it a widebot, or a longbot, and it is modified. Stripping a wire on a CIM for crimping is modification, as has been pointed out in past threads many times.

It is not cool to have Frankenstein's Monster in your hotel room or trailer, to pull parts from as necessary. I have already said that I think the 45 pounds rule is very clear, and that it is extremely generous. It was raised from 30 to accommodate the folks whose build schedule was ruined by the weather this year. Unless you can get your practice bot down to 45 pounds or less, bringing it to competition with the intent of using it for spares is CHEATING.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

Welcome folks, welcome to the dumbest rule in first.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

You are dead wrong. The rule is intended to prevent us from doing exactly what you suggest, and to encourage us to be proactive thinkers. We need to make choices as to what we will bring, or manufacture, or buy, based on our best understanding of the game and what our robots' weaknesses are. What you are planning on doing is (I repeat) CHEATING. Don't do it.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

Not disagreeing with you but you don't get to define the intent of the rule. The GDC (rule updates, Q&A) and their delegates (LRI, Head Ref, etc.) do.

If anything, the problem with the "practice bot in trailer" might be the addition of "static" to the rule.

2014:

2013:

...

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

I agree with this, by bringing in the parts one at a time when needed your 45 lbs is no longer static, its dynamic. I believe by adding the term static this strategy is now illegal.

...

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

How can you argue that having access to 120lbs of fabricated items is not against the rule below?

At an Event, Teams may have access to a static set of FABRICATED ITEMS that shall not exceed 45 lbs.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

Why doesn't someone just post a question to QA, rather than arguing about it?

Edit: Someone already submitted one that would seem to apply: Q416.

Q. Can we bring an old robot to the competition for the purposes of using it to supplement our Chairman's Award presentation and not have the weight count against our team's 45 lb withholding allowance?
FRC0340 on 2014-02-25 | 1 Followers
A. These items would count towards the 45 lb limit in R18.

At least by implication, ALL robot parts brought to the competition, even if they never enter the arena, count towards the 45 pounds, even if they were made in a previous year and couldn't be legally installed on your robot.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

I had actually not noticed that particular rule before.


I will say though it is a very popular strategy which I doubt will be ceased this year by teams I see doing this year after year.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

This is the core of why bringing a practice bot and stripping off parts is illegal.

The rule says: At an Event, Teams may have access to a static set of FABRICATED ITEMS that shall not exceed 45 lbs.

Emphasis mine.

If you can go to your trailer and get a part from a practice bot, that's access. If you have access, or potential access, to more than 45lbs worth of parts you are in violation of the rule.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

First of all the rules state 1 robot is allowed at an event. Having another robot onsite is not legal. If the issue is if the parking lot is onsite then I would say if at the venue then it is on site.

The next issue is that you are not allowed to work on the robot or parts outside of the pit area during an event. If you are taking taking parts off a spare robot then in my opinion you are working on them outside of the pits.

In my opinion and not the final say from FIRST (as suggested, ask in Q&A) and as an Inspector and LRI I would not allow it.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

The rules really don't address where you keep your practice bot other than not at the competition. You can go & harvest COTS parts off of it to your hearts delight. Just as long as they still meet the definition of COTs when they come into the competition.

Aside from the static 45 lb allowance, the manufactured parts on the robot are off limits just the same as anything manufactured in your hotel room, Build site whatever. Which means any manufactured items should be pulled before the competition, not selected from a larger set of parts during the competition. As with many things in First you are on your honor to follow the rules.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

Guys - while some may not like it, it is clearly against the rules to use a practice robot for spare parts in this manner. In Palmetto our LRI instructed us to weigh any team's withholding allowance that we deemed to appear potentially exceeding the 45# limit...kind of hard to verify if it is in the trailer or the hotel.

Going to "practicality" now, however - it is obviously difficult to verify what goes in and out of the venue (unless it is particularly large) so this requires teams to employ the honor system...and with the degree of misinterpretation shown in this thread I fear there will be a lot of violation going on.

Follow the rules - plan a STATIC set of fabricated/modified/altered/assembled parts that is less than 45# and bring that set of parts in with you at registration to show inspectors (and be weighed by inspectors if requested). Anything COTS from the practice robot that you want to use have disassembled before the event and bring it with your extras. Leave everything else at home.

I'd love to hear Al comment....

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

This brings up an interesting question:

Our 2nd event is 2-3 miles away from our working facility. Does that mean every single part in our facility counts to the 45 lb limit, since we have access to it during the competition?

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

Normally, I despise rules that cannot be enforced consistently. Where I make exceptions are Bagging the Robot, and the withholding allowance. While both are nearly impossible to enforce, they are in place to ensure that all teams at the event are playing by the same rules.

All teams get 1 robot and 45 pounds of fabricated spare parts for each event.

Other rules are in place to encourage fair play. For example
T11
At events, Teams may only produce FABRICATED ITEMS in the pit areas or provided machine shops, as defined in the Administrative Manual, Section 4.8: The Pit.

This means that if your team has access to machine shop within driving distance that other teams do not have then T11 eliminates that advantage.

A practice robot in the trailer in the parking lot is access to more than 45 pounds of parts and therefor illegal. No need for the Q & A here.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

Yes.

Do all of your competitors have the same ability? Otherwise it gives you an exceedingly unfair advantage. This is also why the rules prohibit working on any robot parts outside of the pit area.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

FIRST could make this issue go away if they just issued a rule clarification that the 45 pounds of withholding allowance must be located within the pit at the time a team opens their bagged robot.

There will always be a point in your FIRST experience when you realize you can get away with something that is against the rules. It is at that point when you have a choice to make about your own personal ethics, and what sort of example you will set for your students.

Now, if you are convinced that teams at the regionals you attend are knowingly flaunting the withholding rules, you do have several options.
- What should work: Talk to the coach of the team personally. Explain that you noticed that they seem to be violating a rule. Show them a printout of the rule and the QA response. In a perfect world, just knowing that someone is watching will motivate them to change their behavior.
- The theoretically correct way: Report them to the head referee before competition starts and hope the situation is corrected.
- The nasty way: Video record them removing fabricated robot parts from their trailer and bringing them into the arena. After their next match, send a student with a laptop to the question box. Play the video for the referee and request that the team be cited for breaking the withholding rule. Because they used an illegal part, their robot technically hasn't passed inspection. Since they played without passing inspection, their entire alliance gets a red card.
- The non-confrontational way: Do nothing. Hope that eventually karma will catch up to them.
- The way that sets the worst possible example for your students: Do the same thing, because, "Everybody does it, and if they can do it, we can too."

Looking at it from the other side, the violators may truly not know they are doing anything wrong. A few couple years ago, we took a shaft back to our hotel. During a team meeting in the lobby, we used a needle file to fit a key to the shaft keyway. I know we were observed doing this by other teams walking past, but no one said anything. A couple weeks later, I came across the rule that said all work must be performed in the pits. I was mortified, and won't let anything like that happen ever again. But I wish someone had let us know that we were breaking a rule. It's easy to assume other people are willingly doing something wrong when that might not be the case.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

Keep the practice robot offsite (in a trailer, at the shop, whatever). If you need things from it AND you have the weight to spare, go get your parts off of it, bring them in, make a note of how much they weighed and how much weight you have left, and don't go over.

I don't see this as violating any rules, spirit or otherwise. You still have the same limits as everyone else. Teams have done this for years. You only get access to 45 pounds of stuff, you jut choose what stuff to use when you need it.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

Like I said before, I don't think this falls under the "static" definition. While at the competition, your 45 lb witholding allowance is now changing dynamically each time you bring in a new part. With that said, my word is in no way official, and I would ask the inspector at the competition if what you are doing falls under the rules.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

I guess the questions is what defines the event? If it's in the building it counts. Does in the parking lot count? how about 3 blocks away? 4 miles? 250 miles?

If we sent someone to our shop to make a part for our team or another team that is against the rules as well? The definition is vague and causes problems.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

The set is static, you just don't define the set at unbag time. Ie if 45 pounds got me 4 assemblies, once we bring these in we cannot exchange them for other parts wherever we get them.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

...and if you want to use the don't ask, don't tell logic about asking then you know it is wrong.

....which it is.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

What about COTS items.

It's a whole lot of work to remove all the COTS items from a practice bots for spares ahead of time.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

I can see both ways satisfying the definition if "static". "Access" is another word that might swing the argument. Q&A it!

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

That set exceeds 45 lbs though and by your description would be illegal. And by not defining them at unbag time you are creating a dynamic set that can change.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

This is ridiculous. If you intend to bring a whole robot's worth of spare parts to the competition, and keep them offsite, thus bypassing a clear rule in both letter and spirit, then go ahead and go all the way: don't bag your bot. Keep working on it after Bag & Tag day! Fix it until it's perfect. Modify it (or better yet, rebuild it entirely) based on what you see in the reveal videos and early rounds of competition. Then bag it the night before you leave for your regional, and backdate the robot lockout form. You and your team will be the only ones that know...

If that's how you play.

The purpose of Bag & Tag and the withholding allowance are to emphasize that this is a competition in which the honesty and honor of the teams are on public display. The winners of the competition are those that worked the hardest, pushed themselves the most, and had some good luck. The rest of us can go home proud of our best efforts, or wowed by the levels that are possible to reach, ready to try harder next year.

I am discouraged to know that there are so many who don't intend to play this way. Not for the my sake, or the sake of my team. We will do our best within the rules, and win or lose will be proud. I'm worried and upset for those of you who don't see the damage that you are doing to the students under your guidance and care.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

By this logic, if there was a team with unlimited budget, they could build a dozen robots in different configurations and load them all in a semi-trailer and bring them to the event. Once they see how the game is being played, they can go out to the trailer and select the best mechanisms for the game and bring them inside and put them on their robot? Somehow I don't think this is what FIRST had in mind with the withholding rule.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

This is how I read it also. But just in case I think my team are just going to take the high risk parts (intakes) off the proto and bring them in.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

Your hyperbole and continued assumption of the "spirit" of this rule aren't really helping the conversation.

You are free to operate in your own frame of reference, but not to judge others operating outside of yours. The truth is none of us will know the real answer to the question until a specific Q&A question is asked and answered.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

Chris, you've been around enough to know that just because things were legal in prior years, doesn't mean they are legal this year.

In my opinion, the addition of 'access to' and 'static' in this year's rules makes it pretty clear that bringing your entire practice robot to the parking lot and picking and choosing your 45 pounds based on what you need (or what breaks), is illegal.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

So you're telling me that 125 needs to make sure we only have 45 lbs of spare parts in our lab for Northeastern because our lab is AT the venue? Yeah lemme get right on NOT doing that.

Of course, I've always felt the 45 lbs is upgrade parts. 1 to 1 replacement parts shouldn't count since they are functionally equivalent to parts you bagged. (This isn't how the rule is, it's just how I think it should be)

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

My interpretation of "static set" is that you cannot go back and say "oh, this item we didn't need doesn't count anymore, so this other item counts". As in "once it's in, it's in." Your interpretation has a lot of consequences, such as teams never being able to bring in parts they forgot on Thursday, and requiring all of the items enter the venue at the exact same time.

But for the sake of argument let's use your interpretation - you must define this set of items once and it will remain that way. What if you bring in zero pounds of items and then define the set once you go to your trailer / shop / whatever in one fell swoop?

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

True, there seems to be a misinterpretation on one side or the other and I'd be interested in knowing the intent of the rule.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

I have two words to add. Always remember "gracious professionalism" whether in FRC or wherever it carries over into the real world.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

That's not what I'm saying. Please don't overreact until you understand what I mean.

I'm saying that you will be under the honor system that you've pre-selected your 45lbs of withholding and won't go to your shop to take advantage of resources and spare parts that other teams don't have access to.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

We have always brought in our withholding allowance when we brought in our robot, so maybe that is skewing my interpretation of the rule. I would obviously use better judgement than "Oh you forgot a part you meant to bring, sucks to be you" but I could very well be wrong in my interpretation. In my opinion you have an intended set of parts that you plan on bringing to the competition and that set of parts should not exceed the 45 lb allowance. And I want to make sure to put it out there that I am in no way calling anybody a cheater, misinterpretations happen and rules are missed every year, I don't think anybody that is doing this is doing it knowing they are doing it illegally.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

This rule applies to manufactured parts. There is no limit on COTS items.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

It all just seems a little bit silly. We have a 6 week build season because FIRST "likes us", but we have to build an entire second robot to have adequate practice time, and then to actually bring spares or upgrades to an event we need to fabricate another 1/3 of our robot or disassemble and reassemble our robot after every event?

To clarify, its okay for any team to bring their practice robot, so long as they write out a list of which parts they are declaring as part of their withholding allowance?

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

In my opinion that would be okay, provided that the team could prove that those parts weigh less than 45lbs.

The 45lbs of witholding allowance isn't allowing you to use up to 45lbs of any pre-fab stuff, it's that you can bring up to 45 of pre-fab stuff. So, conceivably, you have to plan that allowance out

Bringing a practice robot and stripping any <45lbs of stuff off it isn't the same as having to have brought <45lbs of stuff with you from the start. This is the core difference of interpretation that most people are having here. I think that FIRST intends for us to have pre-selected that 45lbs of stuff, but Q&A is the only way to clarify this. Again, everyone is under the honor system in this rule, especially teams based at (or near) event venues.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

As I read the definition of a FABRICATED ITEM in the 2014 Manual:a MECHANISM built using a COTS item is a FABRICATED ITEM. R18 precludes access to more than 45 lb of FABRICATED ITEMS, so to be excluded from the 45 lb limit, a COTS item would need to be removed from any FABRICATED ITEM before the team has access to it during an event.

Yeah, it is a whole lot of work.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

I think Adam was asking if during an event, he could remove a COTS item (call it a CIM motor) from a practice robot and then use said CIM motor with no questions asked, penalty, etc.

Adam, feel free to correct my interpretation...

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

Our week 5 competition venue is only 2-3 miles from our workshop, so we have access to it. Does this mean we either have to A) offload every part except for the ones we withhold to a storage facility miles away, B) lock everything up and give the key to the lead inspector until the regional is over, or C) bag every part that isn't withholding and have a lockup form so we don't have access to it during competition weekend?

At what point do you say a team doesn't have potential access?

How is it unfair that our facility happens to be within walking/subway distance of the venue? I'm just pointing out a flaw in the wording of this rule.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

You are allowed only 1 robot at the event, period.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

Please define the "event." This is the ultimate issue. I think the arena is the event not the parking lot.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

If you're not going to say it, then I will.

Spare parts (including fabricated identicals) STILL count against your 45 pound allowance. If you have two robot arms that are identical, one of which is on the bagged robot and another you bring in, the arm you brought in counts against your 45 pounds. If you bring in (or have access to out in your trailer) more than 45 pounds of spare parts (not including things like COTS, raw materials, etc.), you are absolutely in violation of the witholding allowance. Otherwise, there would be no reason to have the witholding allowance rule in the first place. You don't get to have a whole practice robot in your trailer to farm parts from. You have brought ~120 pounds to the event. Even if you only select 45 pounds from it. You still brought your whole practice robot to the competition. You are in violation. Pick the parts that are most likely to break and bring spares of those. Yes, I know many teams violate the rules. So stop it.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

The easy answer to the problem of having a venue close to or in your fabrication shop: don't use it. Bag and tag and withholding allowance are, until it becomes necessary to have an intervention, on the honor system. Our main venue is less than 2 miles away from our school. If we forgot a tool, we will drive back and get it (and we'll do the same for other teams that don't have this advantage). There is a hardware store nearby; if we need some screws, we'll go get them. But we won't go back to the shop and pull non-COTS parts out as necessary. I recommend everyone take this approach.

"Judging" and "spirit" are loaded words on CD. Usually, when "spirit" is invoked (and when people are criticized for invoking it), we are debating things like inspiration and mentor involvement. This is categorically different: it is the implication and application of a rule that has existed in some variant for many years, and which was reiterated for this year's competition. As such, pointing out that violating a rule is not the way FRC should be played is not the same as criticizing a team for having a culture that falls within the rainbow of styles that teams have.

And in this case, "judging" is not the personal feelings of me or anyone else on CD; it is the ruling of the GDC and the actual judges who, if they knew teams were allowing themselves free access to any part they wanted, would certainly "judge".

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

I'll give you a hypothetical with some hyperbole.

Team A and Team B build the same robot. Both robots have a critical flaw in them that breaks in their first match on Friday.

Team A is from a city 500 miles away and all of their people are at the event, so they have to build a replacement in the pits with material and spare parts they brought before pits close. They miss all of their matches that day fixing their robot.

Team B's workspace is 3 miles from the venue, so they drive to their shop, revise their CAD model, press go on their cnc machine, and have a spare part in 30 minutes and are able to attend all of their matches that day.

Team B had the coincidental advantage that their build shop was right next to the venue. This is not fair to Team A.

I agree entirely.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

That makes sense. In fact. it's in the rules that you have to do all fabrication in the pits or machine shop during competition, and I'm not debating that. Just the wording of the rule is:

At an Event, Teams may have access to a static set of FABRICATED ITEMS that shall not exceed 45 lbs.

So, being 2-3 miles from the venue means I have access to a static set of Fabricated items that exceeds probably 600lbs. Can we define "having access" to mean "in the venue and the surround parking lot"? Otherwise our team, several other teams, and all teams hosting district events are unintentionally breaking this rule.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

I think a simpler change would just be that the withheld parts must be brought in with the robot barring extenuating circumstances of "Hey we forgot this part at our shop yesterday, can we bring it in with us today?" granted that part was intended to be brought with the robot initially.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

In my opinion the spirit of the rule is to artificially limit (i.e. through the honor system) each team to 45lbs of pre-fab stuff that they have selected before they unbag their robot. I don't care if it's at the venue with you, in a trailer in the parking lot, or at your build space down the street. It must be 45lbs of stuff that was selected before you knew what actually broke on your robot.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

In my opinion, if you do not use these parts and just bring your withholding allowance parts to the regional than you are following the rule. FIRST does not want you to pack up your lab a pnd move it away for the regional (though that's what it seems the rule entails) but as long as you make an effort to actually follow the rules, it's all good. Technically, you still have access to a large set of parts but if you do not go into your lab than it's all good. Just my opinion in what seems to be a huge discussion/debate

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

Where is the like button? Listen to what Steve is saying.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

You can allow/disallow yourself access in a situation like this. We will be an hour and a half from our nearest venue, but could still travel back and forth if we allowed ourselves to do so...your shop could be in the next building - but if you honor the access pledge, you are not going to go in to grab parts.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

I think the intent of the rule is very clear. You have your robot, 45 pounds of pre-fabricated stuff, and then infinite raw materials. Drawing ANYTHING from a second robot is cheating.

Not to draw sweeping generalizations here, but teams who are trying to bend the rule to fit bringing extra parts outside the 45 pound limit are not upholding the spirit of FIRST. You are allowed to make a set amount of backup/alternate assemblies and that is it. You have to be intelligent with which assemblies you bring to competition. You can only do work to better your robot during pit hours and at the pits.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

I was under the impression that fabrication must take place at the events, during event hours to maintain balance for teams that have a full shop 5 minutes from the event with those across a country

Can we find a rule # for the above mentioned? And has anyone put this to Q&A yet?

Edit: In reference to the original question, i too defend the "static" side. having an unchanging set of prefab parts is very different than pulling up to 45lbs from a set of 120lbs of parts. I also agree with the previously mentioned idea that pulling a part off a practice bot for use on the competition bot outside the regional falls under fabricating/ modifying parts outside the event similar to what was posed by my first quote and is also against the rules

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

T11:

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

Place me firmly in the group of people reading this rule as "you must select a set of pre-fabricated parts weighing at most 45lbs prior to competition, and that set cannot change while you are at competition."

If you could not, if asked, state at the beginning of the competition which parts on that practice robot are in your withholding budget and which are off-limits, and if the allowed parts don't weigh under 45 lbs, I'd say you're in violation of the rule.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

Just to put this out there is to my understanding of the inclusion of the word "Static" was put in place so that teams cannot exchange parts they brought in first with other secondary parts later in the competition.

As for this entire discussion I find that there are a lot of opinions and the rule isn't very clear. If it hasn't been done already a question should to submitted to the Q & A for an official response.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

Except having stuff in a trailer vs in my shop vs in my pit (all of which are at the venue) is, under that interpretation, an irrelevant distinction. If I have 45 lbs of custom fabricated parts preselected does it matter if it is in a box in my trunk, on my practice bot sitting in my trailer, or in my shop on a table? I'd assert that it is a moot point in what state of assembly the parts are in.

So, as long as my parts are preselected (I provide a list and proof that the parts are under 45 lbs) I should be set?



Furthermore, what defines a robot? I can bring in a spare sidecar, PD board, CRIO, and radio and that's not a robot... If they happen to all be zip tied to a piece of lexan for easy carrying? Is that now a robot?

I admit, I'm just being difficult. I have every intention of following the spirit of the rule (don't bring in more than 45 lbs of custom made upgrade parts per event) but I don't see myself locking up parts in my shop to comply with the letter of the rule.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

Ahh that's what I was looking at too. Thanks.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

Another way to think of this. The 2 day regional teams have access periods for their robot. They are also limited to the same static 45 lb fabricated parts limit even if they are accessing there robot in their build site that has their practice bots along with comp bots from the last ten games. Before they access their robot, they need to define the static 45 lb. No inspector is going to do that for them or check that they have done so.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

In the past, we have brought lots of "stuff" and kept it in the trailer. Some of that stuff might have been past year's bots, this year's practice bot or parts of bots. There was no intention to use any of the fabricated items, but to have raw material and attached COTS items available, not just for our team, but for teams that came up and asked "have you guys got any (fill in the blank)". An old bot has motors, gearboxes, channel, angle, screws, nuts, etc. that could be useful to our team or any other team that needs parts or raw material.

If I take a piece of an arm off of last year's (or this year's) bot, cut it to length or dill a hole in it to make it a brace for the competition bot, I simply used some of the unlimited amount of raw materials I am allowed to bring.

You guys need to loosen up.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

The manual defines Robot in its glossary as:

ROBOT: an electromechanical assembly built by an FRC Team to perform specific tasks when competing in AERIAL ASSIST. It includes all of the basic systems required to be an active participant in the game: power, communications, control, mobility, and actuation. The implementation must obviously follow a design approach intended to play AERIAL ASSIST (e.g. a box of unassembled parts placed on the FIELD or a ROBOT designed to play a different game would not satisfy this definition).

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

I would suggest reading the reference 4.8 of the Admin Manual, as it is quite extensive on what all is covered.

Also read the following from the game manual.
4.4.3 R15

Many teams have local events, it's in the spirit of FIRST to be "Hands Off" during competitions' down periods (after pits close)
If you're trying to find a loop-hole, it's probably not in the spirit.

Many teams build practice bots, many teams build replacement pieces (part of their 45 pounds) that is all within the rules. Best to leave the practice bot at home and don't take the chance of violating a rule.

Good Luck to everyone this week and in following weeks.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

That wouldn't be an issue to me. I'd see that as falling in the unlimited raw materials category.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

That's exactly how I see it. Also, it's very nice that FIRST has finally updated this rule. For years, it was questionably enforceable due to ambiguity. While not ironclad, the word "static" goes a long way. However, this does imply that a lot of past practice is illegal, which may not go over well with the teams.


There is no standard process for providing documentation of that set of parts, and teams typically won't be asked about it—but if you are asked by an official, you will need to be able to put a list together and justify it. This isn't supposed to be like collapsing the waveform, where the state is only determined when the information is collected—to comply with the requirement that it be static, that set has to be predetermined, even if it isn't documented.

If in the position to enforce the rule, I would interpret it leniently and say that the set can change between competitions. (The rule refers to "an" event, not to all events, so that interpretation is plausible, and certainly practical.)


As for the teams who could be in a position to access their shop (or other resource where more than 45 lb of fabricated parts exist) during a regional event, they need to be able to justify how some of those parts are in fact inaccessible. There's no required procedure, but whatever you come up with needs to effectively limit access. Again, you aren't typically asked, but if you are asked, your answer should have been predetermined.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

What this really comes down to is what FIRST means by "static set".

Could a team hypothetically build 3 mechanism (mec1, mec2, mec3) all weighing 20lbs and keep them off-sight. And after playing a few matches choose that mec1 and mec3 are most appropriate to add to their robot?

I don't think so, this to me doesn't qualify as a static set, as it clearly changes based on need, which doesn't fit the definition of static.

my $0.02

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

The rules as written are relatively unambiguous (other than perhaps the precise meaning of the word "static").

But I am not sure why functionally identical fabricated replacement parts are no longer allowed in unlimited quantities. Isn't letting each team field a fully functional robot for the entire event more inspirational and important than any of the possible reasons why this rule exists?

Space at the venue? Teams are allowed unlimited raw materials, so this cannot be the reason.

Difficulty of enforcing the "functionally identical" part? There is so much else in FIRST that is already based on the honor system...

Fairness? I argue that a weight limit for spare parts is more unfair. Many teams lack the ability to fabricate a mechanism that is both highly functional and lightweight, limiting their ability to fit spares within the weight limit.

Considering that this is both the most violent game of the bumper era, and extending outside the frame perimeter is essentially necessary to complete many basic game tasks, I hope that FIRST reconsiders this policy.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

I'd think so.

I know you are, but someone has to be the devil's advocate (just not the devil's lawyer). ;)

I wouldn't lock up parts in the shop, or lock up the shop. I think it should be an artificial constraint enforced by the honor code, anything more just gets out of hand really quickly.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

From the glossary: I submit that when you have "attached COTS items" or you take a piece off an older robot you don't have raw materials. Even if your arm is nothing but a straight piece of 80/20 you probably cut it from a longer piece of stock, and the word "cut" is in the definition.

To me, the only nebulous part of this is T11's use of the word "produce". I think it's obvious that you're not allowed to have a drill press in your hotel room to make parts at night. What's not obvious to me is whether or not "removal from an existing <something>" is the same as "produce".

This definitely needs to be asked in the Q&A. I'm pretty sure I know what the answer will be -- "removal" = "produce", and therefore having a practice robot in the parking lot or hotel isn't a "static" set of fabricated items -- but it's worth asking.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

Two things cause I gotta run.

1. I feel like the limited amount of spare parts is something that actually forces more thought into designing a robot. When you design a robot all around performing well and you have done your job and you can win at any event if you sail smoothly. Yet taking the time to design something that can handle a few bumps in the road is a beneficial experience for students. Its a humbling experience to learn the hard way even when everything is done right, something can still go wrong.
2. It would be interesting to allow teams to bring as much as they wanted IF they donated anything that was "extra" was given to First to be available to all teams during a competition. This year I see a lot of similar robot designs and I imagine a fair number of fabricated parts could be tossed between teams and used.
Looking back though this idea can be exploited in so many ways.

Last little bit...
I genuinely feel sorry for a team who has to repair more then 45 pounds of damage to a robot. That is a lot of stress put onto students in a very short amount of time.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

Since it looks like I was interpreting this rule differently than others, can someone explain to me what this means for District teams and the robot access period? Is not kosher to take assemblies off of a practice robot and put them on the competition robot? If we have a list of this part and this part and this part, does that make it okay?

We a team broke their robot practicing during an access period, are they not allowed to take a 15 pound component from their practice robot and replace it?

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

How I would interpret this rule is before a competion (and by extension, before your robot access period). you must define (read, "choose") up to 45 pounds of spare items. Even if you never write the list down and show it to anyone, the important thing is that you have to choose what is going to be in your 45 pounds before the start of the competition (or access period).
By my interpretation it doesn't matter where the parts are located but they must be chosen before the event. (ie. "My spare parts for this event are a 30 pound device we brought with us and a 15 pound device that is sitting in my hotel room that I will get if I need to.)

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

1) Seriously? You don't see having that immediate access to all/any of your team's spare parts, COTS or fabricated, constitutes an unfair advantage? What do you think a team competing against you from, say, Mexico would make of this? What about a team that can't afford a big trailer to park in the parking lot? This is EXACTLY why the "45 pound rule" exists. Even in years where lots of robot parts break. Especially in years where lots of robot parts break.

2) 1 to 1 replacement issue: I understand from your post you recognize this is just what you would like, not what the rules currently state. I trust you and your team are professional enough to abide by the rules as they are, not as you think they should be. ;)
But let me tell you why I think the rule should stand: teams with less resources to stockpile spare parts, teams that can't afford to build a second/practice robot, teams that have to travel and ship their parts from great distances - these teams want to compete with you based on your smarts and ingenuity, not on how much money you have or how close you happen to be to a regional venue.

When you explain FRC to someone new, and explain that everyone in the world finds out the game at the exact same time, and has the exact same six weeks to build their robot, and has to stay in the same budget for the robot, and has to repair their robots with what they have on hand at the venue - they get it. They get why FIRST if fair. And they are impressed that we do all of that on an honor system. It's one of the biggest concepts we impress on rookie students and parents. It's part of our culture - our team's culture, and our FIRST culture.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

Emphasis mine.
Some hypothetical problems I could foresee:
- Do you publicize this in any way? If not, then only teams that happen to stumble upon your stash benefit.
- If you have better, more expensive materials on your last year's robot than I have on my current robots, can I simply replace it? Can I take off my cardboard and use your Lexan? Your gearbox that is better than mine?
- Can I replace burnt out motors/C-Rios etc. with your stuff? Can I just put burnt out motors on my robot before I even bag it, and then take all your spares?
- Do you access your trailer before/after the pits are open to grab stuff to work on in the pits during pit hours? If so, can you open up your trailer for me at 10pm on Thursday night for me to do a little browsing? How about at 2am? and can you bring some coffee?

I know I'm getting a bit ridiculous here, but you can see where things could go. Now if you don't mind, I'm going to do a little loosening up - it just looks like I'm taking a nap. ;)

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

Only if you allow yourselves to access them.
A rule of thumb here might be:
Behave as if you had traveled to the Regional from a thousand miles away.
This is where gracious professionalism comes in to play.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

I understood Adam's question the same way you did. My answer is that the practice robot is a FABRICATED ITEM, and that team access to such items is limited to 45 lb during an event as required by R18.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

I think you are reading way too much into this. If I bought a 20' piece of 1" angle last year, and cut 1 foot of off of it to make a robot part, then by your definition, the other 19' would be off limits for this year.

Also by your definition, if I had a piece of 8020 that was 24" long on my last years robot, that I then disassembled and put in the parts bin, I couldn't cut a 9" piece off of it and use it this years bot.

Pardon my bluntness, but that is the most ridiculous interpretation of the rules I have yet seen.

Many of the components of every robot I have been associated with were made from scrap parts and pieces of material from the company where I work. They had been previously cut, drilled or otherwise modified to be a part of something else. After the team further cut, shaped and modified them, they became robot parts. In the following years, as long as the part is modified from its condition as used in the previous robot, it is legal for this years robot.

There is no rule that describes "raw material" as brand new, never cut or modified material. If I use a piece of 1" angle, and apply manufacturing processes to it to make it a part of my robot, its history has no bearing on its legality as a robot part. There is no magic that is imbued into the metal when it is made into a robot part. I get no advantage from using that part unless I use it in the same exact configuration as it was used in a previous robot.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

Let me reiterate what I said and hope that you can read it this time.

Fact: We have a lab at Northeastern University
Fact: All of our stuff is there
Fact: There is an event at Northeastern University
Fact: We are competing at that event


Based on the logic presented earlier in this thread it would stand to reason that by the very virtue of these facts 125 is breaking the rules since we have > 45 lbs of fabricated parts at the venue (specifically all of our prototypes, test chassis, old robots, replacement parts, broken parts... heck, I think we have close to 15 lbs in prototype launcher forks alone).

The only solution I could see to this issue (because under that reading of the rules it is an issue and I would, of course, need to rectify it) would be to remove all of the offending parts from my lab. Do you understand why I have an issue with this notion?

This isn't even approaching the issue that our entire machine shop is available to us at the venue which I assume would also fall under your statement of unfair.

I'll leave the exercise of redoing this with our shop 5 minutes across the street from the venue (or 5 miles) as you will have the same issue with fairness. To which I will simply say, "So?". FIRST isn't fair and neither is life. Legal situation - I bring in 30 spare VP versaplanetaries of various configurations because I want to change my intake roller speed. That's likely over $1000 in parts. Nowhere is that on my BOM. But team 5905 that doesn't have a large budget and is 4 students out of a dad's garage can't do it. And the team from Mexico certainly can't, shipping would be silly on that. You gonna tell me I can't do that next? It's the EXACT same situation.



I'm going to ignore the thinly veiled assertion that I am planning on breaking rules.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

Wouldn't the 30 spare gearboxes all count your total robot weight if you intended to use them in different configurations?

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

No, they are COTS items.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

Even if you intended to use the different gearboxes to give your rollers different speeds? Wouldn't this count under the different configuration clause of the robot weight?

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

What part of "unlimited raw materials and COTS items" is unclear?

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

As I was reading through the manual on Bag Day, I wondered why the 'identical replacement parts' clause had been removed as well. I guess looking at it one way, some may have argued that this essentially allowed teams to 'upgrade' their robot while still keeping the parts 'identical' (to most observers) - but then again, even that doesn't seem to make sense.

Regardless, the whole 'keeping the practice robot in the trailer' thing doesn't bother me one bit. Looking at the 120lbs of robot sitting in the parking lot, I'd be willing to bet that a minimum of 1/4th of it could be made into 'unmodified COTS' components, at which point, if the team were to use them, it'd really be no different than getting a replacement from spare parts. After that, assuming you've removed about 30lbs of COTS stuff, you've probably got 90lbs of robot left. How much of that 90lbs is actually stuff that can be transferred from one machine to the other? I'd be willing to wager not much more than half, if even that much... You've got to remember, the team in question would be disassembling their robot in the parking lot to get a spare off of it, so I highly doubt they're going to spend 2-3-4 hours taking the thing apart just to replace something on their comp bot, but who knows.

All of that being said, I understand why people are arguing it's illegality, and I'd have to say that depending on how exactly you phrase it, it's either illegal or at least 'questionable' - but I'm not sure if it's really the biggest problem here... There are teams out there that struggle to build competitive machines every year, and are tempted by 'stretching' the bagging rules - we've all heard about it, and probably have seen it happen first hand - these are the teams that we should be worried about, not the ones with the practice robots in the trailer. I'd be willing to argue that most teams with a practice machine in the trailer aren't going to be the ones that you have to worry about stretching the unbag rules...

One last note on the spare parts thing, I'm pretty sure that removing the 'identical part' clauses from the unbag/witholding limits only serves to hurt under resourced teams. Technically, according to the rules, I could in theory, use one of my unbag periods to turn some amount of raw materials into spare parts, throw them in the bag, and be perfectly fine. The only limiting factor here would be the resources the team has access to during the unbag period - which as we know, varies greatly from team to team...

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

For the purpose of inspection, yes, these would count towards the robot's weight. The team in question would need to narrow the field of (30) transmissions down to some number that wouldn't increase their machine's weight outside of the 120lb limit.

Now, if they were to test before they were inspected, and narrow (30) gearboxes down to one, there are no problems here.

As far as getting in the door is concerned, since the (30) transmissions would be unmodified COTS components, they're a non-issue, at least when looking at the withholding allowance.

Re: Were to store practice bot at regional?
 

So if I assemble a gearbox out of various COTS parts, its a fabricated item? If another team breaks a near identical gearbox and I want to given them mine; I have to dismantle mine to COTS parts and reassemble because my gearbox was not part of their original 45 pounds?

what about lending a spare intake? a custom wheel that fits 1/2 hex? What if I take a fabricated item, and remake it into something else at the competition with another team, can they use it then? in 2011 you could lend a minibot for coopertition points. A lot of cool blockers were made last year during the lunch break, how come those collaborations can't become more sophisticated? What if a team made a simple plug and play hot zone detection? Would they have to supply it to every team to be fair or could they give it only to their alliance members?

Seems like these rules work against efforts to help another. If I can't give a non-cots part because its not declared with the original 45 pounds, I feel that is against the spirit of FIRST.