How Cheap!
 

During the St Louis regional my team 940 became lucky enough to get teamed up with Carmel Delphi for a match. And after about 1 min 15 sec into the match either team 1005 or team 447, I cant remember witch one. They went over to the Carmel Delphi and pinned there bot in the corner for 9 seconds then they would back off a foot then do it over and over again. I have the video tape of it and it clearly shows them pinning multipul times. There needs to be a rule that you can not pin a robot withing 25 seconds after the first pin. That seems fair doesnt it?

Re: How Cheap!
 

Or just have a robot powerful enough that it can push out of being pinned.:D ;)

There are rules regarding pinning. The robot doing the pinning must back off 3 feet after 10 seconds. Once they have done that they are free to pin you again for another 10 seconds. It stinks to be on the receiving end of that action, but it's within the rules as long as they backed off 3 feet.

Re: How Cheap!
 

You read the rules back in January like the rest of us.

It's completely legal and a formidable strategy. If you are unhappy with this, take steps to correct by designing a machine capable of withstanding such abuse or moving away from it.

I've been on the receving end of this and I can tell you it sucks big time. Its a loop hole in the rules that can't really be closed.

I don't like it one bit, I don't think its a fair move, and I don't think its going to change.

It sucks, but there is pretty much nothing to do about it but to stay away from the edge of the field and hope the pinning team sees a better use of its time.

-Andy A.

How is it a loophole? It's part of the game, if every robot was just given the ability to do what it can do, there would be no fun, it would be a race. Contact, and incidentally pinning are a huge part of the game, if you're not poseful enough to A) push back, or B) speed away, then that's your fault. It shouldn't be the opponents fault, if someone is a risk, they should be expunged, just be happy you're not being flipped.

Well let me say that it would be more graciously professional not to bash teams for playing withing the rules as set forth.

More important, I think, is that you have just learned first-hand about one of the more important realities of Engineering. You always have to make trade-offs when you design something.

Speed .vs. Power: Cyber-Blue's 234 was big, top-heavy, but well-designed so it didn't get tipped, and it was slow. But I never saw another bot pin it anywhere, and (unless I missed a match) it always got to the top of the ramp.

Function .vs. Durability: You saw a lot of bots that didn't do much more than fly around the course pushing and shoving, versus bots that had complex mechanisms for stacking, but were liable to tip over or the mechanism would get tangled up somewhere.

Getting pinned in the corner should show you that someone else made a different trade-off than you did. It isn't right or wrong - you both started with the same kit of parts and identical rules. So rather than bashing someone or blaming the FIRST organization, think about this when you design your next bot. You have just had the opportunity to learn something by experience. That is how life works.

True you do make trade offs with speed and torque, one goes up the other goes down. I know that and Im also know we all started with the same rules and parts. But I think that in a profectional type setting like FIRST comp's.

I mean where is the fun in bending the rules by pinning a team for that amount of time. I can understand pinning for 25 seconds then backing off 3 feet. But I feel you cross the line when you pin for nine seconds back off a foot and ram back into the bot and push for nine more seconds, and this happened for about 35 to 40 seconds. Like I said before "how cheap"!

There's no rule bending there.

ok, there not bending the rules there just playing in a ceap manor I feel.

I can understand what you are saying and everything but, I think its part of the game, Its something teams should consider when designing their robot.

I think if someone brought it to FIRST, they would take a good look at it... and maybe it will get changed. Anythings possible.

Last year we were pinned to the wall by a bot with a goal between them and us. The same 3 foot rule applied, but technically since the goal is wider than 3 ft., they did not have to and chose not to back away from us after 10 seconds.

Now that's a loop hole!!

Just be lucky you can actually attempt to escape from the pin this year?!?!?!

I can guarentee FIRST wont look at, or change this.

Cory

I understand why you fell that way, but your team is ultimately responsible for defending yourselves.

Yeah...you have the option to build a drivetrain probably as strong or stronger than many opposing teams. It's a good strategy and not really cheap. By doing that, they basically stopped two robots from doing anything. It's not like they rammed the bot once, disabled it, then went on doing other stuff. They devoted their time to defending their points. It is a good plan, and you have to work around it.