Q484/485 Regarding "Cheesecaking"
 

Q484 and Q485, recently posted to the FRC Q and A, have some interesting implications regarding the “cheesecaking” activities that have become popular this season. Q484 seeks to clarify the definition of a team participating in a match. According to the blue box under T8:
Now, Q485 seeks to clarify whether a robot that is not on the field (but is currently in the pits being modified) is inspected or not. If FIRST rules that the robot is not inspected, then an alliance would be red carded for having an alliance member participate in a match without an inspected robot. This would disallow keeping your partners off the field in order to “cheesecake” them. If no members from the cheesecaked team attend the match, the alliance is red carded as per section 5.2.2 of the rules:

If the cheesecaked team does participate in the match, the alliance receives a red card under T8:

This would also apply in qualification scenarios; if any team wishes to miss a match while making major modifications to their robot, they receive a red card regardless of what route they take.

Re: Q484/485 Regarding "Cheesecaking"
 

I think the answer is in the rules you already quoted:

To me, this means that an red card would only be given if the team that would miss a match would not automatically receive a red card under T8, in which case they are permitted to not send a drive team member to the field. Whether or not this still results in a red card is not clear.

Maybe a Q&A needs to be submitted to clarify how red cards are handled in playoffs with regards to teams not reporting for a match.

Re: Q484/485 Regarding "Cheesecaking"
 

Im sorry, me being a freshman in a constant search for more FIRST knowledge, what is "cheesecaking"?

Re: Q484/485 Regarding "Cheesecaking"
 

It's a term that was created very recently by team 125 coach Brandon Holley, and it basically means helping another team at your event by helping them build a new component and giving them a component for their robot (like a ramp for the HP station or a hook to get cans off the step).

Why cheesecake? Because everyone likes cheesecake.

Re: Q484/485 Regarding "Cheesecaking"
 

Actually, it's a new term this year (at least CD-wide). It refers to one team providing a mechanism for another team's robot. This is most often done within an alliance, but it is also done during seeding occasionally just to help some teams be more competitive.

Re: Q484/485 Regarding "Cheesecaking"
 

Haha, thanks. We havent had any cheesecaking in Indy yet, dont know why.

Re: Q484/485 Regarding "Cheesecaking"
 

I'm pretty sure this is where Cheesecake came from. http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...1&postcount=81

Re: Q484/485 Regarding "Cheesecaking"
 

There has been. Teams 5188 and 1501 cheesecaked a center RC grabber on 1646 at Purdue last weekend.

Re: Q484/485 Regarding "Cheesecaking"
 

What? I was watching the livestream non-stop. I guess I wasnt paying much attention at that time. By the way, you guys (5188) are amazing! Your robot (in my opinion) is easily the best that Indy has to offer.

Re: Q484/485 Regarding "Cheesecaking"
 

The way this has historically been handled has followed the "common sense" approach:
- Every team must have passed inspection at least once before they can report to the field
- If a team has made modifications since they were last inspected, they can still send drive team members to the field to get credit for the match, but cannot send their robot.
- once a robot has been re-inspected after modifications, it is once again eligible to be placed on the field for a match.

Look at it from the intent of the rules - the intent is to ensure that every team gets their robot inspected in a timely manor, and that re-inspections happen when changes are made so the robot is safe. It's not intended to be used as a club to beat teams over the head with while they try to improve their robot.

Re: Q484/485 Regarding "Cheesecaking"
 

Also being a freshman, I have not really noticed any "cheesecaking", though I have also been watching the live streams pretty much non-stop. Interesting, though. Since they'd have to get their robot inspected before they played with it, wouldn't the other team want to give them the robot component so they didn't have to constantly be getting reinspected? And then they would have that component for the remainder of their matches if they wanted to, which if it was a helpful component, I certainly would. I mean, not that that's a bad thing, gracious professionalism is important, but their seem to be a lot of catches to this "cheesecaking"...

Re: Q484/485 Regarding "Cheesecaking"
 

More often than not cheesecaking happens for eliminations, where a team would get inspected with the new component during lunch break and keep it for the rest of the day. I know 1114 even let their partners 1547 keep the ramp they gave them for the rest of the season.

Re: Q484/485 Regarding "Cheesecaking"
 

Makes sense.