This is what needs to be done!
 

If you dont want people (Swiss Cheesing) there metal the easiest thing to do is to keep the weight limit at 130 pounds and make the maximum size of the robot smaller! Duh

That way people do not have all this space to work with.

The smaller something is the less it weighs..............

no, you just know that if FIRST makes the robot size smaller, but keeps the weight the same, people will use heavier things just for the hell of it. :p

Lets compromize. Lets keep the 130 limmit, but have bonuses and penalties. There will be a 2 lbs. lean, so if you all of a sudden way 131, you won't be disqualified. Also, you can weigh up to 135, but a small point deduction will be made each time (say 4) and if you way under 125, you will get points (ditto, four).

I don't think giving extra (or taking away) points would make everyone happy about the scores during the competitions. Maybe having awards for the lightest robot would make people try to make lighter robots. Maybe...

i would have to say i agree with the disagreement about the giving and taking away of points. but, the weight limit only applies at the weigh-in. i know that we added stuff thirty seconds before the last call of a match so that our robot would pick balls up off the field. that probably put us over...however, we also had enough junk knocked off of us that it could have evened out.

i would like to see first get away from the traditional game. granted i've only really been exposed to FIRST for two years now, but it seems that dean and woody are obsessing with picking up balls and putting them places...then putting goals places. granted the design changes so you have to improve a little, but nothing major...i'm looking for something totally different. i.e. different level playing field, racing, something like that. if they want to indulge my every fantasy...water. make a game where the robot has to move through water.

I think the idea was to officially weigh all robots without a battery. This would eliminate the differences in weight between individual batteries.

The only thing that I can see that could possibly happen is that when the robots are weighed without a battery, some teams may go all out and find massive batteries that way like 20 lbs. That way they could end up having like a 5-10 lbs advantage over the other team. I know it is unrealistic, but it could happen.

It's against the rules to purchase your own batteries. You can only use kit batteries or past years' approved batteries.

we all know not all teams follow the rules...and even if they do at inspection, they don't on the field. there needs to be spot checks before each match i think. one team that i saw (i won't mention names) used an illegal piece as the main part of their ball pick-up last year. well, all they did was take it off for the inspection and then put it right back on. it was an obvious rule violation, but nobody stopped it. they wound up winning the division. tsk tsk tsk

i agree w/ having spotchecks. teams can add anything after inspection and not get caught. even our team added two little steel bars to support our motors after are weight inspection in our first regional. then in our second regional we found out that we were a little over weight. we don't know if for a fact if the steel bars put us over our limit or it the scales were different, but we had to dump a little weight before we could compete at our second regional. spotchecks will keep the dishonest out and the honest, honest.

I'm sure some will disagree with me and say you should mind your own business, but it sounds like cheating is a problem in FIRST. Instead of ignoring it we should try to eliminate it. I believe you have two choices in that situation.

First and most desirable is to get a leader from your team to talk to a leader from the other team about the possible rules violation. Don't go there yourself and flat out accuse them of cheating, that will only get the other team defensive and lead to an argument. Approach them and ask about the part in question. Bring a rule book if necessary.

If for some reason that fails, find an inspector or ref and tell them about the team in question (fyi the judges are the people that determine awards and have no bearing on the rules while inspectors inspect robots and have nothing to do with awards; I constantly hear people misuse the titles and ask questions to the wrong people). I was an inspector in LA and I know all of us wanted to enforce the rules, but we probably missed some stuff. All the real experts on the competition rules (the students) could help us by pointing out rules violations that they notice on Friday or Saturday.

I think spot checks should be implemented in order to eliminate cheating. That type of behavior has no place in FIRST. I think completely reinspecting each bot on Friday or Saturday is too much work for the current number of inspectors. Instead FIRST should have random inspections throughout Friday & Saturday and mandatory inspections for all teams in the elims, plus inspections if a rules violation is brought to the attention of the refs or inspectors. That should help keep people honest and catch those who choose to be dishonest.

Mike

all very valid points and i think the fact that FIRST even has to deal with the problem of cheating goes againts everything FIRST stands for. to deal with the situation, we did the first option. we just minded our own business. we didn't want to upset someone with the chance of being a possible draft choice...

Yeah I'm dissapointed that any of this even takes place in FIRST, but this isn't a perfect world or anything. I also recall the time that "one team" added something after inspection Collin. Hopefully FIRST will come up with a much more effective method than what they use today. I like the spotcheck idea too.

Heres the solution!
 

in nascar all the cars can only have certain modifications done to the cars. so the cars get checked before qualifying and directly after the race.

so instead of just checking bots on the first day of competition, check the winning alliance after the last match. anything major is wrong they get dqed. Keep going down the list until you can find an alliance thats legal.