Banging the driver station
 

At a competition we were at recently, one of the teams would repeatedly hit the driver station wall very hard during teleop. Hard enough to dislodge computers and even knocking the e-stop off and disabling a team's robot.

It seems they would drive into the wall, turn and then shoot a low goal.

I tried to research the legality of this going through the game manual and could not find a good ruling against it. The driver station falls into a gray area where its not part of the arena, and not part of the robot. So "damaging" tactics don't apply. No real arena damage unless the e-stop incident is considered.

The closest rule I could find that would apply is 5.5.4, but even that is up to the subjective opinion of the referee...

Quote:

5.5.4 YELLOW and RED CARDS In addition to rule violations explicitly listed in Section 3 (3.4 Rules), YELLOW CARDS and RED CARDS are used in FIRST Robotics Competition to manage Team and ROBOT behavior that does not align with the mission of FIRST. The Head REFEREE may assign a YELLOW CARD as a warning, or a RED CARD for DISQUALIFICATION in MATCH, as a result of egregious or repeated ROBOT or Team member behavior at the event.

Question: Is this just part of the game play we should plan for? Or should this type of game play be made illegal?

Re: Banging the driver station
 

Refs at GTRC were issuing red cards for this behaviour if repeated.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

There was a robot at the Duluth Regional that would do this every time in Auto Mode. They went through the defense then went full power at the wall. There should be a rule against this.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

I like the red card.

We were at GTRC and had it happen to us - luckily we caught our stuff and were relatively unscathed - and saw many other teams suffer because of it. 1310 was down for several matches due to damage to their driver station laptop.

The rules do not seem to forbid it and Team Update 15 seems to say "it will happen, deal with it". But I do not think it is good to reward lazy programming. I get that you want to be able to breach the rock wall. But come on, how hard is it to put a timer on your code or add sensors?

I had several chats with our autonomous programming team and we agreed that even though it would be easy to do, and legal, it would not be either gracious or professional to use that tactic in our auto code.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

I am only referring to robots under operator control in teleop.


Autonomous robots, I can "understand" accidentally banging the DS, and this was addressed in an update.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

I cannot "understand" either situation. I think Head Refs should be giving stern warnings and yellow cards the first time they see a team do this, either in auton or teleop. And red cards if it happens again. This kind of play is not in the spirit of the FIRST Robotics Competition. People who want to play that way should quit FIRST and play Battlebots instead.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

A note about hitting the wall in auto: If you are using a time or distance-based autonomous to travel a certain distance, you run into issues with sticking on defences. We had issues not getting traction with the rock wall immediately, and so we had to increase our autonomous driving distance such that if we didn't get traction, it would get over eventually, and if it did... well... "BANG."

Re: Banging the driver station
 

NO - this is not an excuse, especially from a team that just this weekend won an Innovation in Control Award!! (I certainly hope it wasn't for your "navigation" system.) Everybody else seems to be able to avoid it - why can't you?

I totally agree - it should be a Yellow card for the first offense, and a Red for the second. If a team can't control their autonomous, then they shouldn't run it until they can. If a team persists in doing this during teleop, then there is absolutely no excuse.

I know we try to be all GP and everything here on CD, but in this instance, I think some public shaming of those who persist in this lazy practice is totally appropriate.

(And no - my team is not one of those who have had their DS unceremoniously dumped - at least not yet! I just think it's a real shame that some teams have no consideration for the teams behind the opposite driver station and for the hard work that others have put into controlling their robots properly.)

Re: Banging the driver station
 

Let me ask a rookie team question....

Our autonomous is strictly time/heading based as we only have the FC Round 2 Gyro to use. We've timed our bot over distances to get an approximate ft/s speed and use that to run our auto.

Given that we have to add a "fudge-factor" to get over some obstacles, how do you suggest we accomplish breeching and guaranteeing we don't hit the tower wall? (And no, we don't have the money for an IMU - I tried.)

(FYI - we won't be able to test any of our autos until Thursday this week, robot got bagged before we could.)

Re: Banging the driver station
 

Use a second gyro if possible and tilt it on its side to measure if you are flat. Or use the accelerometer. Or ultrasonic sensors to measure the barriers between defenses. There are many ways to do this with many different sensors.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

I just wanna touch on this one tiny thing - sometimes you think your auto is right, then it's not. If a student makes a small error, should they be yellow carded immediately for it? (I'm ONLY talking about this situation, not things like stepping over defenses, and other YC things)

Story time! In 2009, at the Bayou Regional, we set our auto to go for 2 sec, just enough to cross a line halfway down the field. Nope, that robot FLEW across the field and smashed into the driver station wall, moved the whole thing back an inch or so as well. Nobody's controls were thrown, nobody had issues that match. If it were your call, should we have been yellow carded? We mangled our robot arms and fixed the auto for the next match.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

Harsh as it is, Most of the high ranked teams will tell you that you should never put an autonomous on the field that you haven't tested on the practice field yet.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

Accidents happen and in certain cases I think it's certainly fair to be lenient.

This year especially, it's pretty easy to determine whether it was an accident or whether it was just lazy coding to get the breach. "Drive full speed till you hit the wall" is a legitimate, but lazy, auto strategy.

if it were up to me, the first one would be a stern warning (this would cover accidents), second time would be yellow card, third time would be a red card.

In addition to the sensor integration ideas mentioned already, even just ramping the throttle would help. if you're down to a gentle tap by the time you hit the castle wall, you're fine.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

Unfortunately extra sensors we don't have. :(

I didn't realize there was a built-in accelerometer on the RoboRIO though. I'll bring this up and see if the team can find a way to make use of it.

Thank you.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

I think that is just something that happens that you have to deal with. This has been a problem that many teams have had, and been a problem for many years, you just kind of have to design your driver station around it. FIRST even provides loop side Velcro so that you can securely mount your computer to the driver station, yes it's a problem, but it's one you will have to get around yourself.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

The Control Award was for our vision system. In addition to goal tracking, we have also been working on using neural networks to track balls. We don't currently implement ball tracking, but we are working on it.

This is a good question, and there are various different reasons. How the robot handles when it hits the defense comes down to a lot of different variables, including what type of drivetrain was used, wheel size, and exact angle that we hit it. Our drivetrain is certainly not perfect at going over defenses, and we have to hit the rock wall just right to get enough traction to go over.

If you look at some of our matches on Saturday, you will notice that we stop before the alliance wall in our first few matches. The question then is what changed between then and the end of today. This requires a bit of explenation. Our autonomous reads values from the Dashboard via Network Tables for an autonomous (do nothing, drive, drive and aim, etc) and a distance to travel. At some point the robot stopped reading these values at the start of auto while on the feild (expect another post about this tomorrow). We don't know why; It worked just fine on the practice feild, and we tested multiple times. Since we no longer had the option of reconfiguring the distance our robot drives based on what defense we were in front of, we were faced with the option of having no autonomous or having an auto that goes x inches, and to change that we would have to recompile and redeploy.

We played a match; auto went fine (crossed the defense, didn't hit the wall). We played another match, and we got stuck on the rock wall. We now had the choice between not always being able to get over the rock wall or definitly getting over the rock wall by running for all of autonomous (just in case we get stuck). We chose the more strategically viable option, in order to get the most points.

Lazy? Perhaps. I would certainly describe some programmers on my team using this word at times, myself included. But in this case, particulary our case where we had to make this change at competiton due to an undiagnosable issue, we feel it was the right decision. Furhtermore, we're not entirely sure how we would detect our total distance traveled. We've talked about adding an ultrasonic sensor, and I believe we've experimented with using our NavX MXP to detect distance traveled, but we've had trouble with both of these methods in the past. Encoder values have been the most relable way of detecting distance traveled. This doesn't work when we loose traction with the ground.

I expect that most teams that build custom driver stations have velcro on the bottom, or put velcro on the bottom of their laptops (We did after we noticed wall-banging in Palmetto). Furthermore, most refs have been allowing teams to catch falling driver stations/controllers, crossing the line with no penalty.

I appologize for typos or anything else messed up or confusing about this post, I've been at a robotics competition for a while and am very tired.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

To me I don't think its worth a yellow card.

There are so many reasons why a robot could smash into the DS wall in this game without it being "attempting to damage the opponent's DS" which is the only thing worthy of a yellow card.

What if the code is off? What if I sensor fails or gives a wrong reading? What if it's a rookie team that has no sensors and was just guessing?

In teleop it seems to me that most of the time teams are running into the wall because they can't see whats going on and its much easier to hear that you hit something and turn to low goal then it is to hope your close enough that you don't run into the invisible barrier on the batter and beach yourself.

I don't think anyone is trying to attack other driver stations. It just comes with the "violence" (not in a negative way) of this game

Re: Banging the driver station
 

If you are low-bar capable, one thing you could do is always ask your alliance partners if you can have the low bar spot - it never hurts to ask. And if one of them has a low-bar autonomous that does more than cross (i.e. also scores) then you should consider not running auto that match or else just run a short distance for the 2 point REACH.
Another thing you can try without adding any additional sensors is reading the current from your speed controllers directly from the PDP. Presumably you will see a spike in current as your bot climbs over the defense, then it will level out once it reaches the other side. Just do a moving average of the current over time and stop when you see it going down.
If you can add encoders to one or both sides, then you can better measure distance traveled, and again, averaging over time will give you velocity. When you see the bot speed up after the defense, then shut it down. (of course, this presumes that your wheels don't slip excessively while crossing).
In the future, you might want to consider an ultrasonic sensor (relatively cheap, but prone to signal scatter from the diamond plate walls) or for a little more money, one of the new compact LIDAR units.

A Yellow card is meant to be a warning - there is no immediate penalty, but it is a strong incentive to not do it again. Giving an "extra strike" as Greying Jay suggests would be difficult to track unless FIRST goes to a 3 card system.
I am of the school that believes no code should be run on the field unless it has been duly checked out on the practice field, and if that can't be done before a match, then you just have to forego the potential auto points until you can. Of course, there are always things that can go wrong due to unforeseen special circumstances (see 3467's whirling dervish can grabbers from last year), but the Yellow card warning would be a strong incentive to figure out why it happened (as we did) and make sure it never happens again.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

Encoders?

Re: Banging the driver station
 

Encoders aren't going to work with rough terrain/rock wall/ramparts/moat unless you have a robot with treads that goes over them slowly like a tank because you lose contact with the ground and have a free-spinning wheel that's still counting up inches.

854 tested and determined approximately how long it took to get over the more difficult defenses in auto in about 5 minutes total. Then we just adjusted our auto depending on what we were doing.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

Thank you for the detailed explanation. I feel your pain on the flaky Dashboard readings. We too were struck with this bug in Week One - several times the autonomous just didn't run at all, even though the drivers swore it was selected on the SmartDashboard. It seems there may be a timing issue, whereby you have to wait until your DS is connected to the field before you make any Dashboard selections. We're just hoping it gets figured out before our next event in Week Five.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

But most teams have all wheels on a side driven by the same axle either via chains or belts, right? So unless you have independently-driven wheels (with an encoder on only one of them) or unless you catch a lot of air during your crossing, chances are that the encoder readings will be reasonably accurate. Not perfect, but good enough.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

We have wheels connected by gears yet still have incorrect encoder readings due to slippage. Encoders are far from perfect. There are many other sensors you can use instead.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

Autonomous wall banging should not be penalized - autonomous is hard enough as it is, and the wall can certainly take a hit.

Teleop wall banging should be penalized - first with a warning from the head ref, then a yellow, then a red.

Red cards should not be given out lightly - FIRST is about inspiring students, and getting a red card is a mighty quick way to un-inspire students.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

Yes - please tell that to all the refs who *inconsistently* handed out red cards last year (including one to my team's human player) for doing something relatively trivial involving the chute door. I can assure you it was a very big deal to him.

At least in this case it would be for dangerous operation of your robot...

Re: Banging the driver station
 

My team opted for a hardware solution as we have heard a few horror stories like this before.

We installed this on our robot:

http://www.robotshop.com/en/rotary-e...module-v1.html

Using the analog input we can read 12 discrete positions which we are using to select our auto mode. There's no way to specify parameters as in a Dashboard solution but so far we have managed without. We could always install more switches :)

Re: Banging the driver station
 

Have you tried them? With the fairly-standard drive train we're running this year (we haven't revealed yet, so can't say much) I'm doing motion control over the defenses with encoders and that's been working fine; I have not seen any egregious loss of telemetry on the defenses.

Precisely.

What other sensors are you going to use to easily get distance information?

Re: Banging the driver station
 

This is where I have to interject. To start, my opinion on this issue: If it's a repeated autonomous, the head referee/lead FTA should ask the team to investigate other ways to deal with the situation, possibly even going as far as to make recommendations himself/herself. Additionally, they should also expect, but not require, the team to investigate help with it's autonomous. While I don't believe that teams should run into the wall in autonomous, I don't find it a serious enough issue (especially with velcro on the driver station) to warrant a card.

Now to my point: not every event has a practice field, and not every team has/can afford sensors. For example, there was no practice field at Columbus this past weekend. In this case, teams did not even have a chance to test autonomous modes. Additionally, there were a couple of teams that had autonomous modes that ran into the driver station. These teams were generally rookies. While I'm not saying that all rookies cannot afford sensors, many cannot. As a result, I do not feel like there can be any expectation for teams to not run into the driver station wall in autonomous. The rules cannot change just because a team is a rookie; what is applied to one must be applied to all. Would I like them to test it? Of course, the less violent, the better for everyone. But I don't think it should be required.

Tele-op, however, is rather straightforward; if a team continues to hit the driver station, a red card is completely warranted.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

All actions have consequences.

Regardless of intention, if you prevent another team by your direct (including autonomous) actions from playing to their full potential you deserve a penalty.

I find it difficult to believe that anyone on the receiving end of a direct hit that stops them from playing would being okay with a team not getting any type of penalty. It wouldn't be fair to the team affected.

What that penalty is debatable. I think a combination of a Foul and a yellow/red card if repeated or egregious.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

At Kansas City, the refs said that if your drive station did fall in auto, you could pick it up, without the penalty for crossing the line.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

There is no guarantee that you are able to catch your laptop so it does not get damaged and leave your robot unable to compete.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

It is really simple to secure your driver station. Use the velcro. (hook side on your driver station) This has already been pretty common, but we were surprised to see no other teams were using clamps like we were. If you do go with this approach, make sure your driver station has an SSD, an HDD can be effected by the shock the "castle" wall may receive.

Another option is to use suction cups on the lexan "glass" of the driver station.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

The problem is that I've seen stories where even though the operator consoles were attached with hook and loop tape, the force of a 120-pound robot hitting at 10 mph was still enough to send them flying. That kind of shock force is enough to damage hard drives and jostle hardware connections enough to cause BSODs. Just browse the threads here and you'll see teams that lost expensive laptops that fell down, or lost matches because their laptop was damaged after a hard shock.

Generally speaking the expectation that "it's going to happen" is warranted, for many of the reasons already stated. But look at the goals of auto this year compared to, say, last year. Last year one could certainly expect robots to bump and bang the driver station while trying to get a 3-tote auto stack. But you would not expect, except by freak accident, a robot to aim itself directly at the driver station wall and charge at it. But this year that's exactly what you're supposed to do.

If FIRST's answer going forward is "deal with it" then I would recommend at the very least adding more hook and loop tape to the operator console (not just one strip) or provide other options for mounting, like straps or bolts. They should also provide rookie teams with SSD-based netbooks.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

Encoders work fine when there is no slippage, however there is quite a bit this year.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

Not reading the rules and updates and understanding the consequences is also an action with consequences. :]

While the head referee is the final interpreter of the rules, they cannot change them & are supposed to interpret them as written. There are no rules against hitting the field hard enough to dislodge driver stations. A bit of grey area for egregious or intentionally damaging conduct, but that is a high bar to cross.

Having said that, intentionally ramming the field with the intent of dislodging driver station is certainly against Gracious Professionalism.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

We are running our autonomous based on time with adjustments through smart dashboard for the various defenses. We are not using full speed for any of them.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

I completely agree with this idea. Having more options to secure the driver station is always a positive.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

As an engineer, I prefer to find a technical solution to the problem, rather than complain about it. Here are some resources to help.

Computer:
http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-Ultra-D...ve+shock+mount
Cable strain relief:
https://www.tethertools.com/product-...le-management/

Note that there are 108 square inches of velcro at the drivers station for you to anchor your driver station to the shelf. Using published strength ratings, (http://qualitythread.com/Download/Ve...ty-Tapes-2.pdf) you should have 702 lb force in tension, and 810 lb force in shear to retain your drivers station. I'll suggest, in the kindest way possible, that teams whose drivers stations "fly off" the shelf perhaps aren't taking advantage of what they have been given.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

QFT.

FIRST has stated that impacts with the alliance station (especially during autonomous) WILL occur, and that the Velcro is there FOR THAT REASON.

I do agree that continuous purposeful impacts to the drivers station during teleop can be construed as 'Damage to the field' and penalized that way but teams should plan for some impacts to happen.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

The laptop linked is rated for resistance to vibration and temperature (thermal) shock and is not claimed to have resistance to mechanical shock. It probably will be more tolerant to mechanical shock than most laptops.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

I mean from my point of view it doesn't sound like they weren't doing it for the impact, it sounds like it was how they aligned with the goal. It would be one thing if they intentionally kept doing it harder and harder but if the goal is to score then the less time you spend running into walls the better you will do and that at a certain point they will just casually drift into a cool spot and take the shot.

As soon as they are just smashing the wall just for damage thats one thing, but it sounds like they didn't have any bad intent.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

I don't mind the robots hitting the Driver Station Wall too much. We have Velcro on the bottom of the driver station, but I also set my clipboard and the co-driver his Xbox controller up there. My concern is when during Auto the Xbox controller and clipboard fell off and the co-driver and my immediate reflex reaction was to catch it before it hit the ground in order to avoid damage. Now during auto we aren't supposed to cross that plane and especially touch controllers.

I didn't catch if a foul was called, and the match was restarted anyways, but what do you guys think about the foul if it did happen? We put the controller in a different place after that, so is it one of those as long as a ref doesn't see it happening constantly?

Re: Banging the driver station
 

They specifically do allow you to touch the operator console for safety purposes (e.g. to rescue it).

Re: Banging the driver station
 

I agree with others that teams should make sure they Velcro down stuff but I also firmly agree that yellow and red cards should be given to teams that repeatedly do it. There is a third of a field worth of error teams can have in their autos so that they don't smack into the wall as hard as they can. Teams need to take responsibility and make sure their auto works without tackling the station. Once or twice fine but the whole regional is unacceptable in my opinion. At that point it is either fully intentional or the team didn't bother or care enough to fix it. A team this week hit the driver station so hard it activated an e-stop and the match had to be replayed. Was that the field's fault or the robot's fault? I'm sure people might answer differently but I completely believe it to be the robot and team's fault.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

Every team receives an ultrasonic sensor as a PDV. This is a perfect sensor to be used for not slamming into walls at full speed in auto. There are dozens of other sensors that cost less than $50 that could also be implemented to stop teams from driving full speed into walls.

There are legitimate reasons why teams might not be able to stop themselves from driving into walls, such as inexperienced programmers or lack of programming time with the robot. However a lack of free/affordable sensors is not one of them.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

Yeah. We accidentally ran into the wall once and dislodged an opposing driver station. They didn't have any tape or Velcro on their station but even so we got a yellow card. I think I'd be more inclined to issue a yellow card if it was repeated match to match, but that was the referee's ruling.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

I don't understand why they would yellow card this. It was once from what you say, and they specifically warned all of us about driver stations being knocked off in in "Week .5" and that we should Velcro them.

"You should expect the opposing robots to drive at your castle wall at high speed during auto, slamming into it. If your operator console isn’t secured, it may go flying. There is a strip of hook and loop tape on the shelf in the player station that holds your operator console. You should consider putting a mating piece of hook and loop tape on the bottom of your operator console to help it stay put. See Section 2.2.3.1 of the Game Manual." - See more at: http://www.firstinspires.org/robotic....OwoXGJhj.dpuf

Egregious is supposed to mean severe, and the examples the FRC manual used are more along the lines of humans touching robots during a match, not robots hitting the driver station.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

From my perspective behind the driver station, the hits were egregious in the sense it was shocking and bad. Not sure how it looked from the ref's location.

They were also repeated when the robot was shooting for the low goal.

My drive team asked if we could do the same thing when we were on the field (our robot was built very tough) and were told that is not a strategy we would use whether legal or not.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

While you have a valid point about the cost of the device....

.....this is also true. Ultrasonics would probably help often, but they aren't a perfect system.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

I'll admit I haven't used ultrasonics with the diamond plate on the field (I'll be able to tell you more after week 4), but I find it highly doubtful that the scatter will be so bad that the ~10 foot sensors from MaxBotix wouldn't see the wall at all when the robot is 4 feet away from it. If this is the case, our autonomous routines are going to have some troubles.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

I don't either (not a programmer, aren't using them this year), so I wouldn't be able to make a definitive call either. I'm definitely interested to hear about it though.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

Sounds good, I'll make sure to post an update on the Iowa regional thread, so check there or watch our matches if you want to see how it goes.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

I know this thread wasn't supposed to be about autonomous, but since there's a lot of discussion about encoders losing counts, I figured I'd chime in with this: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/at...3&d=1458005957

If 5089 could stop after catching that much air, it's a matter of tuning, not sensor selection.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

...I thought this thread would be about having teams stop banging on the driver station during team announcements. I was disappointed.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

I see the announcers doing it more, not even considering the fact i have never seen it in any PNW event i have been to.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

Personally I have never had too much luck with the Maxbotix ultra sonic sensors. The reading always seemed to be very low resolution.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

Resolution without filtering can sometimes be bad, but never horrible. With our running average filter, we have about 4-inch resolution. I suspect that a median filter would work better, so we might try that if we want better performance.

Regardless, even without filtering, it can pretty easily be used not to run full speed into walls.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

Back in Lunacy they had bumpers on the alliance station wall. In hindsight, that may have been a good idea this year.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

Interesting thread.
What would the commenters think about a robot that, either in Auto or Tele-Op, unintentionally repeatedly rammed in to other robots at full speed, hard enough to damage/disable the other robot?
Would a notification that robots should be built to withstand high-speed impacts excuse such behavior?
Would a notification that robots should be built to withstand high-speed impacts absolve the ramming robot of yellow/red cards?
Would we condone a team building/driving such a robot?

My point is, the drivers' station equipment is something teams purchase, program, build, modify - just like our robots. It is not inspiring to see your hard work go down the drain because someone else found a task too daunting/difficult.

Our goal is to inspire students. Telling them it is their fault for not securing their equipment well enough, or that they didn't buy robust (read: expensive) enough equipment, or to just "deal with it" when entire matches or entire regionals are destroyed for them does not seem to me to be the right attitude.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

If you replaced the driver station with the robot would your opinion change? Would you still suggest that it is a team's fault if they sit there and a robot drives into them at full speed? If they didn't move out of "the way "it would make it their fault?


This is pretty much what I am trying to say.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

Today in semi-finals a robot on the alliance we faced was known to smash into the driver station wall every match in autonomous. To prepare for that we put our logitech controllers behind our already-velcroed laptop, however when they hit our station they actually managed to bang the lid of our laptop down such that we didn't have control of the robot for about the first 5-10 seconds of the match. After this incident, the head ref told us that in the next match we could hold our driver station (two controllers and a laptop) in place if we saw that they were about to hit us, as long as we didn't give the driver station any input. We ended up not having to do this because of the defenses we selected, but I think this was a great way to deal with the situation on the ref's part.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

You didn't technically need the Head Ref's consent to start doing that, though it is helpful. G14/15 do have the clauses to allow you to interact with the Operator Console if it's (or personal/robot safety) are in danger.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

There was an instance where this happened at The Chestnut Hill district event where a robot rammed into the drivers station and dislodged our controllers and our laptop fell on the ground. Although this was not a repeated action from this team I can see where this would appear as very aggravating and why you would expect a penalty from such behavior.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

Karthik was high kicking the glass at UMass Dartmouth to introduce teams. I guess he gets a little enthusiastic.

I was cringing until I saw he really wasn't touching it. (Not for his foot, mind you; I didn't want to quickly replace the driver wall :p )

By the way, there were a couple of times robots would push the driver wall back. Which isn't easy, considering the weight and velcro. One time it was four inches! Viva la AndyMark fields!

Re: Banging the driver station
 

Something about a pair of Jordan's will get your feet off the ground.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

It's not the shoes. Karthik can fly because he is really The Great Gazoo.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

Plus he starts from the Defenses to get a running start... but I'm probably giving away trade secrets.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

I would be thinking the same way as you if one of the robots hadn't smashed into the wall so hard in autonomous as to bend the drivers wall inwards. No foul was given, but despite the velcro on our drivers station, pushed it almost to the point of falling off.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

I think a reasonable change would be to call a field fault if a drivers station got knocked of during autonomous, but that is not the current rule. I am only reading the rules as they are, not as I would like them to be. But yes if our driver station was knocked off, I would be upset while realizing it is within the rules. If our robot was hitting the wall that hard in autonomous, I would have the my team change the code or disable the autonomous. Hitting the wall with the intention of damaging the field or driver station could be called egregious. The trouble there is knowing the intent otherwise it is within the rules. The only people that can change the rules is the GDC they can be reached here. frcteams@usfirst.org

[tongue in cheek]If a team sits there while a robot drives into them full speed would be at least a little bit the referees fault for letting them on the field during a match.[/tongue in cheek]

As a side note, at the Georgia District Columbus event, teams where hitting the defenses hard enough to damage them. All where warned that after a warning on the field, they would be penalized.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

IMO if your driver station falls off its your own fault. I don't want to sound mean, but FIRST provides Velcro on the DS shelf for a reason. At CIR over last weekend we saw a couple of teams lose their DSs to auto slams. In the end one of them ignored the Velcro and went straight to a C-clamp.

Long story short use the Velcro that's provided, and your DS should be fine. If your controllers are falling off, Velcro them down too.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

Velcro didn't help anyone or anything at SCH this weekend. The indicator light, e-stop, and team number read out flew off the driver station as well, could have seriously hurt someone. Teams using C-clamps this year should be applauded.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

If the indicator light and team number flew off because a robot ran into the wall, they were not properly installed.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

And on top of that you can't give a team a yellow or red card because the field is setup wrong. That is grounds for a field fault and redo.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

While you may have your opinion and are entitled to it, be careful of inflammatory comments without experience.

We had our DS knocked off at CIR this weekend as well, despite having velcro on it to secure it, as we have had on that OI case for the last 4 years. This did absolutely nothing in our case. I have never seen a robot hit the wall as fast or as hard in my 7 years in FRC. And when you are watching your own robot at the other end of the field to see if its auto worked, you aren't necessarily watching what's coming at the wall in front of you.

We had maybe half a second to react before the DS was just above the floor, laptop now closed, and hanging by cables. We lost all manipulator controls for that match, and the USB port they were plugged in to did not work properly again. It seems we also lost the other USB port in use at the time, which later was intermittent and unreliable, and at this point, seems to be the reason we lost drive control in the middle of our last two semifinals.

We are buying a new DS laptop today as a result.

Did we use velcro? Yes. Could we have stepped forward to catch it? With Spiderman reflexes, yes. Were the refs within the rules to not replay the match? Yes. Did I have a very unhappy drive team? Yes. Did the team adjust their auto? Yes.

Was it our fault? No, I don't think so.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

Can you tell me that the team sign and lights being moved caused a difference in the outcome of the match? T20 requires the Head Ref to determine if a replay is necessary based on a potential change in outcome. It is possible they were in a position to interfere with the view of the drivers, but if they were simply hanging from their wires (which I would expect to happen if the mechanical attachments that Wetzel referenced somehow failed) I doubt it would have a significant impact.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

I'm pretty sure they were installed correctly, as those individuals have been doing this for 20+ years.

But seriously though, this robot hit the driver station wicked hard, much like the description Rick talked about in his original post.

Peace
-CBJ

Re: Banging the driver station
 

The field is no longer in spec. Displays that are supposed to be in a location are not can be both distracting and interfere with driver's focusing on driving a robot.

To all those using a c-clamp isn't that illegal? Wouldn't you be extending outside of the legal driver station size.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

Our whole driver station was within the 14" width specification - including the clamps. From what we have seen, there is no rule explicitly stating where your driver station must be positioned.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

Here's my suggestion: In the future lets modify the drive station such that the back edge closest to the playing field has a piece of 1x1 versa frame bolted welded to it. Then teams could have the option of having a couple holes on the back of their drive station to put a bolt and wing to attach to. I guess they could even use a thick zip tie if they wanted.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

This is what I like to refer to as "solving the wrong problem".

Re: Banging the driver station
 

Also if the field isn't put together properly then it isn't safe. If it isn't safe we shouldn't be playing on it.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

We were in Que directly behind the driver station where the the indicator light, e-stop, and team number read out flew off. just like Dancin103 said it was "wicked Hard". The head field setup person as well as the head FTA quickly came over picked up the pieces. FTA determined nothing was going to interfere with the drivers as the teleop period had already started and he quickly went and got the replacement parts and had them in place right after the match to so would not be delayed and could keep on moving.

Read the Manual, use the Velcro its there for a reason !

Re: Banging the driver station
 

I find this thread fascinating because it so beautifully illustrates the difference between the theoretically perfect world of academia and the real world in which engineers must design products to survive. I see so much angst being expressed by those who want to design for conditions they WANT instead of designing for the conditions that ARE.

The engineering challenge of designing and building a drivers station to survive harsh conditions is not particularly difficult. Boats, cars, airplanes, spacecraft, cell phones, digital cameras, and FRC robots are all examples of complex systems which must survive harsh shock and vibration environments to be successful. Elementary school students participate in competitions where raw eggs are dropped hundreds of feet and don't break.

The problem here isn't designing and building a robust driver's station. This is known technology. It's almost trivially easy. The problem is getting people to accept the fact that it's necessary. You can argue until you are blue in the face that robots shouldn't hit the wall hard. They do. You can argue that you've been in FRC for twenty years, and it's never been a problem before. Well, thank you for your years of service. That was then. This is now. You can lobby that the rules should be changed so robots that hit the wall are disqualified and matches are replayed. That will be small comfort to you as you contemplate the remains of your smashed drivers station.

It mystifies me how people can OBSERVE how harsh the conditions are, but still refuse to accept that it is necessary to build a robust driver station. It doesn't matter that you don't want it to be that way. It doesn't matter if the robots that hit the wall do so accidentally or on purpose. It doesn't matter if it's legal or not. At some point in this game, you are going to have a robot slam into the wall in front of you. It's up to your team to decide if you want to be a team who picks their driver's station up off the floor and continues with the match, or are you going to be the team that comes on CD and posts about how their broken driver's station cost them their match.

In one of our practice matches we went over the rock wall and our robot died. It turns out the battery strap broke, the battery jiggled around, and the connector came unplugged. I asked if the connector was zip tied and got blank looks. After fixing the strap, the students asked if they really needed to zip tie the battery connector, as it would slow down battery swaps. I told them that we wanted that connector so secure that if the battery came completely loose and was dragging on the ground behind the robot, it couldn't possibly come unplugged. We never lost power again in a match.

We use PS4 controllers for our driver and operator. Before the season started, we recognized there was a risk the USB cable could come unplugged from the controller and discussed possible mitigations. The students shrugged this off and never did anything about it. Predictably, in one of our early matches a robot banged the wall in auto, the controller fell off the shelf and came unplugged. The operator immediately plugged it back in, but the match was halfway over before it reconnected and he regained control. This would have been a disaster if we had not included buttons on the driver controller to lower and raise our ball intake, for just such an eventuality. Back in the pit, we used electrical tape to secure the cable to the controller. To test the security of the connection, we hold the controller overhead and drop it. It stops just short of hitting the floor by jerking on the USB cable. Repeat 3 times. If the connector disconnects, it's not good enough and the tape needs redone. We have had no problems with disconnected controllers since.

So, is it possible that you could design your drivers station so you could go on the roof of your school, toss it over the side, and have it survive? I say yes. Would this drivers station survive getting knocked off the shelf when a robot hit the wall hard? You bet it would. The ENGINEERING problem is a solvable one. So, accept that the operating conditions are harsher than you would like them to be. Define an operating environment that bounds the worst case, apply a safety factor, and design to that. Hope for the best, but DESIGN for the worst.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

ToddF,

I don't disagree with anything you have said.

However, the goalposts have now been moved. The official word from FIRST, and the opinion of those who share your view, is essentially: "It's going to happen. Deal with it. There's velcro on the operator console for a reason."

But how many posts in this thread were from teams claiming they've used the velcro, and it still didn't help?

Use more velcro, you say. Use C-clamps. Do whatever it takes, anything, to secure that driver station. Zip ties. Bolts. Aluminum channel. Tape your cables together. Perform drop tests. Build a driver station capable of being dropped from the roof of your school.

This is all good advice and certainly I would expect every team to design for conditions much worse than they actually expect to see. But now we're seeing stories of impacts that have been so hard that they are literally damaging the field itself, causing lights, e-stops, and displays to fall off.

Are we just going to keep saying "hey, it'll happen" and tell teams to continue the arms race of build bigger and stronger driver stations? And, while we're at it, maybe redesign the fields so they can withstand stronger impacts? Those lights and e-stops really shouldn't be falling off that easily...

Or, you know, maybe an official ruling that says "hey guys, maybe there's a better way".

Overdesigning is always a good idea. Dealing with real-world conditions is always a good idea. But this is one set of real world conditions that could be changed for the better, and all it would take is a team update.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

FIRST kind of designed this game with the driver station wall very much a strategy of the game, so it would be kind of difficult to penalize teams for using it... Plus I am one of those people that think crying for penalties makes the game weak. (Like flopping in Soccer or Basketball). Engineer a more rugged driver station so that this problem is moot and lets the robots play!

Re: Banging the driver station
 

I am aware of teams who use the driver station wall as an alignment guide by gently driving the robot into the wall, guaranteeing that it ends up square against it so they can then back up from a known position. I am even aware of a team that won an Innovation in Control award some years ago for this simple and, at the time, unique, tactic.

Driving ahead at full speed as an alternative to using sensors or smarter code isn't strategy, in my book.

Would it have been OK last year if robots got the 3-tote auto stack but continued to shove their way through the landfill at full speed? If not, what's the difference here?

Re: Banging the driver station
 

If field elements such as light boxes flew off... A reasonable argument for a field fault is that is a distraction for the drivers at that drive station. Certainly if they are dangling over their heads by the wires. If the estop got dislodged and was not in the right place. (poster mentioned that it was dislodged as well), that is grounds for an immediate field fault if you are concerned about safety.

While you are specifying your new driver station, keep in mind the likely hood of next year being a water game. :yikes:

Re: Banging the driver station
 

In one of the matches we played one of our alliance's robots lost connection after a robot slammed into their driver station. Their computer and stuff were fine, but the internals of the driver station were not. We didn't get to replay the match.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

There wasn't a specific rule against driving into the land fill at full speed. The only limitation there would be damaging game elements or knocking something over to the other side. In any case the three tote auto score would not be effected. I don't recall if we ever did this in competition, but one technique we tried for breaking up the land fill was driving into it hard.

Re: Banging the driver station
 

I think the goalposts stayed right where they were, but were only made more obvious. How many people at Kickoff weekend realized how bangity-bangy the robots would be getting? Still plenty of robots get a loose wire after driving over a defense, even after Week 3. How many teams watched Week Zero events and still thought robots wouldn't bang against the Driver Wall?

Re: Banging the driver station
 

By extension, Q948 makes C-Clamp driver stations illegal too. Back to the drawing board velcro, boys.