Please...no more steenkin' light!
 

A few years ago, FIRST inflicted us with a high tech solution to making it easy to identify alliances, the stinkin' light.

This year, much controversy pertained to the placement of the light. Despite the rules, many teams embedded their light inside their robot, making it hard to see from the stands and invalidating the purpose for the light.

Many other teams followed the letter of the rule and had a more visible, and vulnerable, light. Our light, for instance, was almost completely demolished by the end of the competition season. The poor thing is held together by super-glue, duct tape, and tie wraps.

The problems with the light are many. It is heavy. It is bulky and tall. In competitions where you have a low constraint of 14", the light may reduce your height constraint to 10" or lower. It consumes precious power and an extra relay. It requires effort to mount and wire it. The light is a very high tech, resource intensive solution to a simple problem.

Many teams solved this same problem (robot identification and visibility) more effectively this year by putting a whip antenna flag on their bot.

So my proposal is, why doesn't FIRST require us to use a flag instead of a steenkin' light?

THE LIGHT IS THERE FOR SAFETY PURPOSES

derrrrrrrr it not only id's an alliance it shows the robot is on so people dont walk up to it and get hurt.

Because the lights are just freakin cool.....

I'm sure FIRST will come up will a more defined set of rules on light placement next year... and these lights were actually smaller then lights in the past (2000, 2001, etc.)....

If ya dont want the light broken dont put it in a high impact zone, :ahh: we usually have our light in the center of the 'bot and i cant remember ever having a light broken (maybe in 2000 or 2001 once)

A flag would be harder for people in the stands to identify alliances, ya cant miss the color of the light (even if teams did have in buried in their 'bot)

I'm sure the lights will always be a part of FIRST robots... :)

I thought it was hilarious were some teams placed their lights. I saw one team where their light was destroyed almost every match.

Not true. Many times, while watching matches, I had difficulty figuring out which alliance one or more robots belonged to because the lights were too buried, or their visibility was obstructed. This difficulty was made all the worse after the match ended when the lights were off!

I'm all for the light. It actually does make it easier to identify MOST teams.

However, our team had bright red frame and 639 was in huge letters on sides and back upon a white background which was really easy to see.

The rule I don't like is how the judges want numbers on 4 sides, as in the four sides AROUND the robot.

For stackers, the actualy front side is not a very good place for the number. Reading the rules carefully, the number can be placed on any 4 sides at 90 degree intervals. The top is then a much better side for stackers yet most inspectors didn't seem to think so except one who went and READ THE RULES. :) I think 3 sides is plenty for identifying a robot, along with a light. It's not like the robtots are covered in styrofoam peanuts.

Best argument for the light is robot function.
No light= broken robot.

Especially in this variety of when robots were enabled (depending on when the human player got out of the field) or if the robot tried to leave during autonomous the light helped tell the spectators as well as th edrive team what was going on (sort of)

So I like the light. But more consistant placement rules would be nice. How about LED strings around the frame? Say 4 feet in the kit and 1 foot must be visible from any side of an unobstructed robot.

Just a thought

I think we can say that the rules on lights were a little lax this year including the wrong color during matches. There are other ways to handle this but none as simple. If you couldn't see our light it was due to the ambient light in the venue, but (you knew this was coming!) this year's light was so much better than last year's. (Sorry to the supplier of last year's light who is from my home town.) It is lighter and draws less current. Since the light is not essential to winning or losing a match, no big deal.

I saw a team at SVR who was designed to go under the bar, but their light was on a spring-loaded hinge with protector bars around it, so when they went under the bar, the light was pushed down, and then it popped back up and swung back and forth a little. That was hella cool.

The light has saved my life numerous times. Esp. while testing the auto mode. It's one of the few times when you don't want to go towards the light.

Im pro-light. I weighed the 2002 light and then the 2003 light and found out that the 2003 light is about half the weight of the 2002 one. Also they really have improved the light a lot from those big bulky lights held in by hose clamps in 2000 to the little twist on light in 2003 that was definitely less annoying than in 2002.

lights are good. plus, when you do demo's people think the light is cool looking. it gives it an extra effect :]

The light is a necessity. It is extremely helpful in scouting situations; it helps identify robots when the team's number is way too small to see at a distance. Plus it makes the match a little more interesting if it causes problems. :D

FIRST should more clearly mandate light visibility at the beginning of the season and then stick to it!

The challenge of the light placement should be looked at as just another "engineering opportunity"

My vote - Keep the light (a light)

I agree that the light should stay. Flags are much more difficult to identify than a rotating light. You can't miss a light even if you wanted to. It also helped attract attention and keep the driver focused amidst the jumble of boxes. I don't know about other regionals, but our light shattered once when we were forced under the bar and FIRST replaced it for us.

I'm really sorry but I saw that happen and just couldn't stop laughing. I though your robot didn't go under the bar but to my amazement I was wrong.:D

As an announcer I need " To see the Light" and the numbers. It's hard enough with all that's going on to remember every robot and number and team name and robot name and alliance and ............ Whoa.
You need to watch your robot which you see all the time and remember 1 alliance partner at a time. Even then I saw 2 alliance partners pushing each other around until they realized what they were doing. I saw robots that I would not have passed during inspection because their lights were not visable. FIRST needs to go back to having trained inspectors rather than team members.

lights/flags for the crowd, drivers and mentors/human player(strategist) usually knew who was on what team.. i hope they did..

but yea the lights are awesome.. they really make the robots seem alive when they are out on the field.. maybe strobes or something but the lights should def. stay

Back in high school I had a project for a tech class to protect an egg in a crash. The main rule was the egg had to be at least 2/3s exposed. Some students almost totally enclosed there egg. It survived the crash but they failed because they didn't fallow the rules. MY egg broke but since I fallowed the rules I got a B. It was much harder to design the restraint for an exposed egg. The same is true for choosing were to place the light on a bot.

I think FIRST should instill a clear rule that the light cover should be totally exposed. Teams may and are encouraged to surround the light in clear lexan or with a thin metal mesh to protect it from damage. Should the light be damaged during a round by collision or impact its a minor penalty. If a ref thinks that at anytime the light is not visable then the bot is assigned a minor penalty.

The robot must meet wieght and size requirments. Wiring must be to code and the light should be part of a design requirement. Teams may complain that it impedes there design but so does a size limit. Its plain and simple, robots must be identified as to which team they are on. If by the placement of the light they are not allowing there bot to be identified they are breaking a rule plain and simple.

In fact, instead of just making it a rule, I believe it should be a part of the checklist for next year. I saw many teams CLEARLY violating that rule, where we actually decided to design a solution when we thought there was none.

The lights also have another purpose......after the season is over they become very useful.

for example our team was able to take our old robot to Burger King and we ended up placing it outside on the sidewalk with the light on, rotating, and with the red case over it.
needless to say that at night time the cars on this very busy road, it is right before the expressway entrance/exit, slowed down to a crawl because they thought there was an accident....I ust love nosy human nature......anyways, while they were going extremely slow Aaron and I, aaron is a good fellow animator, ran over and tried to get them to honk there horns and come into the drive. we actually got several people to come in because they were curious...again love that human nature....we got some pretty good money that night. and we owe it all to the rotating red light that could be seen from all 4 sides.

just a little story to show that those lights can be very useful....when used properly and has two crazy looking dancing people by it.

How about LEDs? Ok, here's how it could work, you have a thin circular light case (could be like 1/4-1/2 tall because LEDs are little!) there are LEDs arranged around it in a circular pattern, with, and here's the key! BOTH (or all, if we end up with more than two colors next year) colors of LEDs are in the case, and using the IFI software, the colors are controlled by the field equipment (or a switch on the robot/in the program). This means you would never have to worry about switching light lenses, and it would most likely be much less prone to breaking, as it is smaller. This could then be mounted on top of the robot, meaning you can see everyones, and it's not blocked!

LEDs can also be WAY brighter than normal lights like we have now, I know my team had some of those wheel lights, and they were much brighter than the competition light.

Also, you could do really cool strobing patterns if there were lots of LEDs.

The link is to a really poorly made picture, I hope it gets the idea across.
http://members.cox.net/johcagaorl/LEDlight.bmp

I want to keep the light for nothing more then safety.

It really makes things clear: If the light is on the robot is likely to move in the near future, stay back. If it is off, it probably won't go anywhere.

So simple even the freshman can figure it out.

-Andy A.

The light is important only IF it can be seen. That's a rule FIRST definately needs to enforce. Also, making sure the right color lens is on the robot should be enforced, or else it makes spectators beyond confused.

LED's would work, they are bright and lightweight. I'm all for it.

I would treat any robot as if it were live, regardless of the light. Somebody could have unplugged your relay after all.

The problem I see with LEDs is there noone who makes a rotating LED light that I know of. FIRST probobly gets the lights dirt cheap so thats why they use them. Is it that much of a pain to change a piece of plastic. If you have trouble getting to your light most likely your one of the teams who buried it in your bot.

Its simple, put your light on the top of your bot, surround it with 1/8 inch lexan or the ramp mesh to protect it. I really hope FIRST cramps down on the teams who bury it next year. If having a the light in a legal position ruins a design then obviosly that design is faulty, just light a design that would make your bot 135lbs.

FIRST should more clearly mandate light visibility at the beginning of the season and then stick to it!

The challenge of the light placement should be looked at as just another "engineering opportunity

-Jim-
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I agree with Jim about them needing to enforce light visibility more. However I believe that it is stated quite clearly in the rules... and along with the numbers debate and some of the newer pnumatic changes... the teams just do not bother to read all of the rules and updates... and if they do, they just don't follow them because for heavens sake... it might make them have to do some engineering and change their design a bit.

I mean how hard is it to have numbers on all four sides that are atleast 4" high? It's not people! But you still get the teams with the 2" numbers on two sides of their bot who grumble about not passing inspection yet. And then there were the few that just did not have numbers on them to start with...

Durring inspector training at one of the regionals Team XXXX generously donated their bot so the head inspector could go over all of the things that we were looking for when we inspected the rest. It was a well build robot... and they only had three problems that we picked-up on. 1-some pointy edges 2-the number thing... but they were cutting out the new ones i believe and 3- you could not see the light from the front due to some stacked PVC... When the coach of Team XXXX came back... he assumed that we were going to pass him because he lent us his robot. We told him the three problems and he refused to change the light location. Eventually they just let TeamXXXX pass because there were a bunch of robots with the light issue.

I saw robot XXXX competing later at another regional when i was going through the NASA-TV archives and they had not changed anything. Which pisses me off to no end, becuase the teams that do follow the rules and make their light visible have to modify their designs to include that... those that do not should not be allowed to compete... because they are not following the rules.

The light is a good safety key... so you can tell when it is on... and i have had no problem with them when i was on the team... aside from them popping off ocasionally. (and sending current through the frame if not mounted correctly) This years light is lighter, and the top does not pop-off because it screws on. The only problem with that is if it cannot pop-off when put under pressure... it shatters... I saw many a broken light cover at the spare-parts table and i think if the plastic was a bit thicker like last years covers they bould not break so much.

In final.... consider the rules when designing your robot... and build around them.... this is an engineering activity you know.

Did you see my crude picture? it doesn't have to rotate, you can use a bunch of little lights.

Personally, I thought many robots violated the light rules as originally stated. But because of all the whining, including much on this forum, the rule in practice was modified into something unrecognizable and practically unenforcable.

Much of that came from the attitude "Let's just do what we want, they'll change the rule to make it easier anyway". Based on past experience I don't blame people for having that attitude, but it still disgusts me, especially when I hear it from my own team (which I did, repeatedly).

Assume at the outset that rules are rules and if you violate them, you may have to pay the price, even if it means you don't compete. That should go for name teams as well as rookies and vice versa.

My suggestion for clear rules based on this year's light:

The light shall be mounted in such a way that it is vertical in the robot's normal operating position.

The light shall be EXPOSED for a minimum of 4 inches. Exposed means there is nothing between the surface of the light dome and the eye (or corrective lens in my case) of the observer.

The light may be occluded by robot structure or protective cages, however the total width of the occlusion shall not be more than 50% of the light diameter at any angle. (so if the light diameter is 3" you can't have a structural element bigger than 1.5" or more than 6 1/4" rods for a protective cage)

For purposes of this rule ANY material between the dome of the light and the observer is assumed to be OPAQUE. This includes materials that are normally transparent because the reflections that occur from field lighting on such materials can and do make it impossible to determine the light color under competition conditions.

It must be possible for the team to change the light color in 15 seconds or less. If the there is any doubt about the ability to accomplish this, the team will be asked to demonstate to the inspectors in a timed test that this is indeed possible.

The burden of proof for compliance will rest on the teams. That is, a light is assumed to be non-compliant unless the team can demonstrate that it's placement in fact complies with the above rules.

Any comments?

Looking at the person who suggested LED lights... I want to say you've got a really good idea!

For those of you unfamiliar with these, I found google'd some pictures that'll show you what they look like. The idea is you take some LEDs - preferably surface-mount LEDs to save space - onto a flexible strip of plastic or something similar. The wiring is done on the strip itself so all that teams have to do is plug them in on one end of the strip and they go.







ADVANTAGES OF LED LIGHT STRIPS OVER ROTATING LIGHT:
1. Light weight - less weight you're required to put in, the more weight you CAN put in
2. Take up very little room - LED light strips can be mounted almost anywhere using just a little piece of velcro - you can have a strip mounted to the outside of each side of your robot - identification can't get much easier than that
3. No mechanical parts - no worrying or reports about the rotating motor breaking down
4. Very little current draw - more power can be directed to those massive 40amp breakers!
5. Neat strobe effects can be created using simple $1, $2 micros. The prospect of modding a strobe or night-rider-esque effect with microcontrollers would draw more programmers to doing something a bit more high-tech than writing measly code, attaching a wire to a laptop, and having it all magically work for you.
6. LED's don't burn out (unless you apply too much voltage to them) - although I've never really heard of teams having a problem with their lights burning out.

DISADVANTAGES:
1. Blue is a relatively expensive LED color - utra-bright red led's cost about 10-15 cents each, ultra-bright blue led's cost about 2 dollars each. Can be solved by either buying in bulk, or making a different color alliance (like red vs green alliances).
2. If FIRST wants to make a 'light-equivalent' of leds (like was pictured above), it will probably have to be designed and built by them. Can be solved by instead of designing a new led product, just giving 4 strips of LED's in the kit and having teams mount one strip on each side with velcro or something similar.
3. If FIRST would choose the 4-strip solution, theres the problem of swapping colors/strips. Solutions:
- - Use LED strips with plug-and-go molex-like connectors and velcro
- - Mount both and wire a simple switch to control which turns on
- - Or if you want the ability to change alliances in mid-match to add the element of confusion and surprise to the game, do solenoid-like wiring on the relay for the two mounted strips so you could change alliances at the flip of a switch at the OI ;-)


Anyways, long story short, I think the advantages of using LED strips are really attractive and the disadvantages can be solved relatively easily. The biggest problem will be finding a supplier that can provide 4 (or 8, depending on the setup) x 1000 strips that will meet exactly what FIRST would require (brightness, size, connectors, etc) by next January. However, if they can find plastic mounts for motors designed to go into drills, I'm sure they'll be able to find a relatively simple LED product like this.

Yeah.I'll assume you're talking about us. I'm disappointed that an inspector would single out one team that he inspected for this kind of bashing. You expressed your disapproval over our light. The FIRST Head Inspector was called over and he approved it. If he had deemed it illegal we obviously would have changed it. To quote one of your own posts from another thread:

I get the feeling you broke a few laws that night.

Dave,

You're right, I should not have referenced a particular team, even obliquely. I have removed the reference from my post. (I can't do anything about your quote) There were many teams that had light placement that violated the letter of the rule as originally written, but were allowed to compete. There is no wrong in taking advantage of a change in the rules.

I was wrong and I apologize. Thank you for the correction.

Chris H

they should replace the rotating light with a lower-profile circuitboard with high wattage LEDs mounted around the edges pointing outwards, and a chip in the middle that "rotates" the light

smaller, lighter, cooler ;)

Pain as it was, I've got to say I like the light. It lets you know when you forgot to power up your bot so you aren't freaking out as much as you might've been. It lets you know that the bot is running and that you need to get out of the way or else the arms might rip a giant gash through your abdomen. It reminds you not to stand in front of the bot and risk losing your shins.

I'll say there were a few too many rules for the light, though. And it might not've been so bad if there weren't an advantage to having a short bot this year. (Very short, with the light.)

Maybe having two colors of rope-light or whatever it's called: it looks like Christmas lights in a transparent hose. Get blue and red, and have them visible in or on your frame so that they're visible. Switch on the color for the appropriate team each match. Maybe that plus the rotating light, with fewer restrictions on rotating light placement?

I feel combining the two would increase the visibility a good deal. Of course, we've got to realize that Dean gets what he can while still keeping our kits cheap, so any light is better than no light, and rotating lights are freaking cool. (A few parents thought that we did it on our own just to be cool :cool:)

when the light is on, all passer-by's will KNOW that the robot is on. Quick way to see which robots are dead on the field. So that's one advantage of light over flag.

Chris,

I wouldn't be so quick to apologize. You were absolutely correct. There WERE several teams that violated the letter of the rule, not only as originally written, but after it was thoroughly rehashed, clarified, and restated again and again on the FIRST Q&A board and this forum. (Try to find team 1010's light during the webcasts of the Lone Star Regional elimination matches. Great robot, good matches, but no light visible ever.)

There may be no wrong in taking advantage of a change in the rules after the fact, but in my opinion these teams CAUSED the change in the rule, due to their ignoring it. The teams that followed the rules and displayed their light correctly had to make decisions and trade offs not required by the teams that broke the rules as repeatedly stated. I'm sorry, but I have to have a little less respect for teams that caused this, and for the inspectors that passed a robot that was clearly in violation of a pretty clear rule.

Yes, the ref's ruling is final, but it can still be wrong, and pointing it out may make for better decisions next year. This failure to enforce rules (lights, batteries, cylinders, last year's tethers, etc.) is one of the few flaws in the program. Let's try to fix them rather than rationalizing them.

Respectfully,
Bruce C.

I'm glad we had the lights...we had a lot of problems the first day during Nationals (the practice day) and our light told us this because it wasn't working...We finally figured out that we had our interfaces switched. We were using one from last year, and one from this year.

But the light DOES need to be stronger...I accidentally sheared another team's light during a practice round when the robot actually DID work. Sorry to whomever that was!