Chief Delphi - Do you think a practice robot is needed to compete?

Chief Delphi (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/index.php)

- General Forum (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=16)

- - Do you think a practice robot is needed to compete? (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=139391)

Re: Do you think a practice robot is needed to compete?

Quote:

Originally Posted by mman1506 (Post 1507321)

In 2014 it was made clear that bringing a practice robot to your event is was not legal. I'm sure GeeTwo did not intend to break the rules but teams reading his post and his own team should be informed that bringing a practice bot to an event is not legal. While unlikely a team could be penalized for breaking this rule.

To the event? Or into the event?

If you're going to make warnings, make them specific ;)

It's legal at all times to walk into an event with a purely cots item, where I got that 5 mins prior is irrelevant.

Re: Do you think a practice robot is needed to compete?

Quote:

Originally Posted by GeeTwo (Post 1507304)

We brought our practice 'bot to both Bayou and CMP last year in the trailer, to have an on-site source of spare parts. As it turned out, we did not need them, though we did loan a couple of dura-omnis, bearings, and shafts off of it to another team at Bayou.

GeeTwo, you seem like a solid guy who wants to do right by your team and by FRC. I'm adding my voice to the chorus: please, please don't ever do that again. It is definitely not okay.

Re: Do you think a practice robot is needed to compete?

Quote:

Originally Posted by mman1506 (Post 1507316)

The intention was illegal. Shafts if cut are not COTS. If the DuraOmni has been assembled with a sprocket or a hub it is no longer COTS.

He did not say any of that. Your jumping to conclusions. all the things he has listed can be perfectly legal COTS items. you can speculate, but please don't doubt until you know the whole story.

Re: Do you think a practice robot is needed to compete?

No, none of the parts was machined, or otherwise modified from the COTS state. For the record, the "shaft" was actually a COTS bolt and nut. As a matter of fact, KoP COTS part, as it was from our KoP chassis. After popping out the bearings and taking the belt sprocket off, this was a pile of COTS parts. It took less time to put them back together than it took to get them off of the practice robot. We never intended (nor did) to use the practice robot for fabricated parts, but as a ready store of exactly the same COTS parts as we had on the competition robot. The handful of fabricated parts from the practice robot that we intended to use on the competition robot (mostly the pickup rake) were removed the night before competition and brought as part of the withholding allowance.

Appended: I had not read the 2014 Q&As, and was unfamiliar with the ruling referenced above; I was going purely by the 2015 rules and the Q&As which I saw for 2015. While I did not look at every Q&A as it happened, I recall going through the whole list of Q&As a few days before Bayou to make sure I hadn't missed something. I have again reviewed the 2015 rules, and still cannot find anything we did here which violated those rules. Here are some interesting and/or applicable quotes from the 2015 rules. The bolding (other than on the terms being defined) is my emphasis.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Excerpted from Chapter 6, Glossary

COTS – a “Commercial, Off-The-Shelf” COMPONENT or MECHANISM, in its unaltered, unmodified state. A COTS item must be a standard (i.e. not custom order) part commonly available from the VENDOR, available from a non-Team source, and available to all Teams for purchase. Items that are no longer commercially available but are functionally equivalent to the original condition as delivered from the VENDOR are considered COTS and may be used.

FABRICATED ITEMS – any COMPONENT or MECHANISM that has been altered, built, cast, constructed, concocted, created, cut, heat treated, machined, manufactured, modified, painted, produced, surface coated, or conjured partially or completely into the final form in which it will be used on the ROBOT.

ROBOT – an electromechanical assembly built by an FRC Team to perform specific tasks when competing in RECYCLE RUSH. It includes all of the basic systems required to be an active participant in the game: power, communications, control, and movement. The implementation must obviously follow a design approach intended to play RECYCLE RUSH (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).

Therefore, items which are altered, built, etc., etc which will not be used on the ROBOT which will compete in RECYCLE RUSH do not count as FABRICATED ITEMS. Obvious examples include:

Tools, including laptop computers used for programming, which have been built/altered/painted/loaded with WPIlib and Eclipse/whatever
Custom toolboxes, banners, and pit displays
Our team's trailer (even though it was a special order item, and clearly not COTS)
The truck that pulled the trailer (even though it had non-stock wheels, a tow ball, and a license plate, among other customizations)
Team uniforms and mascot costumes

Please note that without the prepositional phrase in which it will be used on the ROBOT, each of these items would have been a FABRICATED ITEM.

Not that it really advances the case much, but it is interesting to note that the "practice 'bot" is arguably not a "ROBOT" or even a "FABRICATED ITEM" by the above definition if it is not going to be used to compete in the current game.

And, here are a couple of "blue box" items of interest:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blue Box below R17

This means teams may not store FABRICATED ITEMS outside the pits to be brought to the event at a later time.

This actually hints by negation that teams may store COTS items outside the pits to be brought to the event at a later time. I could find nothing that contradicted this idea.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blue Box below R12

Please note that this means that FABRICATED ITEMS from ROBOTS entered in previous FIRST competitions may not be used on ROBOTS in the 2015 FRC (other than those allowed per R12-C).

And this one hints by negation that COTS items on ROBOTS entered in previous FIRST competitions may be used on 2015 robots. Again, I could find no contradiction.

I fully FULLY agree that if the purpose of keeping the practice robot nearby were to harvest it for FABRICATED ITEMS, or if we had done so, it would have been against both the letter and the spirit of the rules. This was so far from my mind that it did not occur to me that it had to be explicitly stated in my earlier post.

Re: Do you think a practice robot is needed to compete?

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrnoble (Post 1507324)

GeeTwo, you seem like a solid guy who wants to do right by your team and by FRC. I'm adding my voice to the chorus: please, please don't ever do that again. It is definitely not okay.

Ive never read every rule of a rule book so that's why I'm asking this. Why is it not okay for him to do that? Is there a rule about it and if so, can you quote the rule? Is it not ok to have pre made parts as backups? What's the difference between a pre cut part on your practice robot and a pre cut part in your tool box? Like if a part on my robot is a small metal plate that has 5 holes in it, is it ok to have a spare part with all 5 cuts in my tool box? If that's ok, why can't I take the same metal piece off of my practice bot? It would be essentially the same thing as taking it out of your toolbox. Or is is because it's not in your pit and you took it from your trailer to the pit? Thanks. I'm curious since I don't know this rule all that well.

Re: Do you think a practice robot is needed to compete?

Quote:

Originally Posted by logank013 (Post 1507363)

The difference with taking pre-made parts off of the practice bot in the parking lot and out of your pit is the fact that you have to be selective of the weight of the parts in the pit. With the practice bot in the parking lot you can bring them in as you need them. This would give you a much wider selection and seems to break the intent of the withholding allowance rules.

Re: Do you think a practice robot is needed to compete?

Quote:

Originally Posted by logank013 (Post 1507363)

There is a rule sort of. It's a combination of rules really:

Quote:

Originally Posted by R17

At an Event, Teams may have access to a static set of FABRICATED ITEMS, not bagged per R14, known as the WITHHOLDING
ALLOWANCE, that shall not exceed 30 lbs. to be used to repair and/or upgrade their ROBOT. With permission from another Team, Teams may also have access to FABRICATED ITEMS that are part of that other Team’s WITHHOLDING ALLOWANCE to repair and/or upgrade their ROBOT. The WITHHOLDING ALLOWANCE may only be brought into the Venue when the Team initially loads in at the Event. Items made at an Event do not count towards this weight limit.

Quote:

Originally Posted by R17 Blue Box

This means teams may not store FABRICATED ITEMS outside the pits to be brought to the event at a later time. This set may be changed between events (i.e. a Team may leave a different set of items out of the bag and/or fabricate new items to bring to their next event) provided the total weight of FABRICATED ITEMS brought to the next event does not exceed thirty (30) lbs.

And that's not all for R17, there are actually more bits to it but those are the relevant sections: http://archive.usfirst.org/sites/def...al20150407.pdf

EDIT: And you bet your butt that Team 900 knows this rule and has read it over a few times. The first step in pushing boundaries is knowing where those boundaries are.

Re: Do you think a practice robot is needed to compete?

[quote=marshall;1507367

EDIT: And you bet your butt that Team 900 knows this rule and has read it over a few times. The first step in pushing boundaries is knowing where those boundaries are.[/QUOTE]

Just out of curiosity, what happened to team 900? Also, thanks for the information. I remember seeing that rule. Just forgot about it since all I focus on is scouting. That is definately an issue then.

Re: Do you think a practice robot is needed to compete?

Quote:

Originally Posted by logank013 (Post 1507369)

Just out of curiosity, what happened to team 900?

Cheesecake happened

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uyr-WSKnbQ

Re: Do you think a practice robot is needed to compete?

It's interesting that with nearly 300 polled members still 90%+ of the teams have some interest in building practice robots. I would have thought with time such a large margin would erode. Guess it's either the composition of ChiefDelphi's active members or just not enough interest.

Re: Do you think a practice robot is needed to compete?

Quote:

Originally Posted by techhelpbb (Post 1507589)

It's CD.

Re: Do you think a practice robot is needed to compete?

Even with an extended build season we would build multiple robots. The practice bot gets way more run time than the competition robot and is falling apart by championship.

Re: Do you think a practice robot is needed to compete?

Quote:

Originally Posted by SM987 (Post 1507592)

Even with an extended build season we would build multiple robots. The practice bot gets way more run time than the competition robot and is falling apart by championship.

Sounds like we should have a competition just for the practice robots ;)

Re: Do you think a practice robot is needed to compete?

Quote:

Originally Posted by techhelpbb (Post 1507589)

Or, just maybe, a practice robot is actually a key part of becoming a highly competitive team?

There are exceptions to the rule (610 and 359 come to mind) but it seems pretty clear - the return on investment on a practice robot, given enough time and resources to use it, is a tremendous advantage.

The number of people who aren't on CD, are on highly competitive teams, and don't build a practice robot, that number is really small. Maybe 10%?

Re: Do you think a practice robot is needed to compete?

I feel like the reason teams are successful without practice bots is because they come out in week 1 with a really really good bot or they really use Thursdays well in the pits. In districts, having a practice bot is very valuable since you can perfect mechanisms on your practice bot and make duplicates for your competition bot. Since you can unbag your bot for 6 hours in the week before a competition, having the practice bot to test new mechanisms takes less time of bag time to add new mechanisms.