Weigh in with or without battery
 

I believe the maximum weight of the robot should be 130 Lbs without battery. I have heard that some teams "Cheat" at weigh in... They dump the insides of the battery and weigh in with a dummy. I believe the standard weight should be 130 W/O battery. I will have a poll on this, please tell me what you feel and maybee it will come true.

Should weigh in be with or without battery?

Yes.

No.

Doesn't compute.

I know.. Im going to have it fixed... I realised it when I hit submit.

Well, for now.. Yes means With and No means without.

Through my experiences I deffinately believe a team should weigh in without their batteries. Without going into detail, it keeps things on an equal playing field.

Well just to put things in perspective the type of team that would weigh in with a ringer battery, is the same type of team that will weigh in with a subassembly missing from their robot and then add it after they make weight and hope no-one notices or has to re-weigh. There will always be people who try to cheat the system, the battery is but one of the ways.

...and if teams weighing with an illegitimate battery is an endemic problem, FIRST can set up guidelines for acceptable battery weight -- say, 12 to 16 lbs. or so, and check the battery for compliance.
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It saddens me to think that anyone in FIRST would ignore GP and cheat in this manner. It is one thing to accidentally break the rules or push the limits on their interpretation. It is quite sad when it is done so blatantly.

Raul

as of being a FIRST volunteer, and having worked with some of the inspectors, i am going to have to say weigh in with the battery, and to show you all the truth, no one can get away with a hollow battery in an inspection, unless the inspector misses or forgets to do half the inspection. See the battery is not really placed in there to add weight, it is in there to work as a BATTERY. I know this may be hard to fathom for some of you but the battery is an operational device of the robot, plain and simple. With out getting into much detail, when you go through an inspection, the robot should be turned on, this is to check for any wiring that may be done incorrectly and cant be seen by our eyes. Also it is to make sure all the parts (including the pneumatic pump, with an empty accumulator) turns on to fill it and turns off with the pressure switch when it hits around the correct PSI. Now i am not saying that you may think, OK then just place the battery in after the weigh-in, and that might work if bots were inspected properly, but as it is now, the battery is the robots weight so its included in the weigh in. Also i would not recommend people to try and fool inspectors with hollowed out batteries, because these batteries are filled with a caustic gel that i have seen eat through metal, due to a team member on an unmentioned team trying to shave weight off the sides of a battery and causing it to leak while in shipment... Now imagine that on your skin!
~Mike

I think that the current weight limit is appropriate in that it provides enough room to have plenty of features, but still provides a challenge. In terms of teams that use dummy batteries, I think that any team caught weighing in with a dummy should be disqualified from that entire regional (or nationals as the case may be). I know it sounds extreme, but IMHO dummy batteries are among the sleaziest thing a team can do.

Not to mention it is one of the easiest ways to get caught cheating.

I think the weigh-in should be with the battery, since that is the form in which the robot is competing. It'd be as if the length, width, and height minimum measurements were in a different position than the starting position.

Although it would be good in that there would be fewer ways for teams to cheat at weighing-in. But this is FIRST; should we really be concerned about that?

Well it really isn't that hard to give a tug to a battery now is it?? It shouldn't take a rocket science to figure out that if your lifting that battery with ease then there is something wrong.

Like drilling holes in the battery to save weight? I recall some threads where we expressly warned rookies not to do this, and that it was all a joke. Someone seems to have missed the point....
Also, at some events (possibly most), due to the scheduling constraints, weigh-in and the power-on tests were conducted separately. This means that the inspector would not accompany the robot from the weighing station to the pit, where the powered tests were conducted. Instead, he/she or another inspector would return later to complete the inspection. It would be very possible for a team to replace the modified battery with a functional one in the intervening time.
So you see, it's not a matter of the inspector forgetting, it's a matter of the offending team making a discreet switch when nobody's inspecting.
-Tristan Lall

When I was inspecting last year, I had several ways of making sure the battery was "real". Generally I just had the team turn on the robot to check that the light operated correctly and the other controler settings were correct. Then we'd run over to the scale and weigh the robot, without removing the battery.

Sometimes this was not possible, like during a partial inspection. We would often go through the control system and pnuematics before a team was ready to weigh or while they were working on dumb things like numbers.

If the control system had already been inspected, we'd weigh the robot and then take the battery out and weigh it seperately. There was some variation between batteries, but it should be pretty obvious if a battery was tampered with in a major way. As I recall they varied between 13.5 and 14lbs. Anything outside that range would definitely arouse my curiosity.

There are many ways to "fudge" the rules. But messing with the battery won't help, it will just get you caught. Because the inspectors are looking for it.

If anyone has reliable information about a team that did cheat this way last year, and got away with it. I'd like to hear about it. Especially if it happened at Sacramento, LA, or the Championship.

By what you're saying, it seems there are teams out there using cardboard batteries during weigh in. :p
I don't think a team would get to the point to use a dummy battery, in the sense of a hollow one or something like that. What I have read here in the forums is that some teams use really old batteries for inspection, as it is a known fact that they actually get lighter with time. It is a cheap shot, nonetheless, but you can always blame it on the freshman member for putting it in place, in case you get caught. :rolleyes:

So, yes, I think the robot should be weighted without the battery in place, or at least some "official" one, standardized to every team.

I think the latter part of this quote is an excellent idea. Have one, brand new battery (or other consistant weight) at every regional event. You take your robot to the scale without the battery and this battery is placed on the scale with your robot (and everyone else's). The weight limit remains the same. How about that?

Oh, and don't try to place your toe under the scale and lift up while your robot is being weighed. They look for that too. (although it is helpful and okay to fudge with it a little up and down before the acutal reading is taken to ensure an accurate measurement.)

That may be a good idea. :D
Last year we were weighting the robot in Seattle and the scale would range from 130 to 130.5, so *someone* (was it me? :)) had the brilliant idea to empty the air tanks to see if it would help - heck, the air above us weights a whole lot :D .
Well, the scale actually went half a pound up... Go figure
"And the robot got some nice speed holes..."

I must admit...
 

If we were close at weigh in, we would weigh all of our available current year batteries and choose the lightest one. This helped us a little and also fell well within the spirit of GP and FIRST.

Why not simplify a little bit and just figure out the average battery weight and subtract it from the total allowed weight, and allow teams to weigh in without the battery? Net result should be the same...

For example, if the official battery is deemed to weigh 14 pounds, just make the weight limit 116 pounds, and have everyone weigh in w/o the battery.

The "official battery" idea would also help to check the "is the battery easily removed" item from the inspection, plus, 130 is a nice round number to play with, eh? :D

It's pretty easy to tell just by looking at the battery compartment on a robot if it's easily removed. However, an "official battery" won't really solve any problems - when you have 4 or more weigh-ins occuring at the same time (some regionals have 2+ scales, the Championship has at least 4 scales), you'd need 4 "official" batteries. And guess what? It would be very likely that there'd be minor variations between the 4.

In that regard, the scales at the Championship seemed to vary by up to 1/2 pound anyway, so there's already a lot of "slop" in the whole weigh-in process. I don't have a problem with people weighing in with the lightest battery they have (as long as it's still a legal battery). There's no rule against it and it only gains them a marginal amount of weight anyway. If there really are teams that would stoop so low as to weigh in with a hollowed out battery, then those teams will find a way to cheat one way or another, making this somewhat of a moot point.

I think we should weigh in without the battery and change the weight limit to 55 kg.

Batteries
 

I would say without or at least FIRST should have a 'Standard' battery weight. We used 8 batteries last year and the difference between the lightest and heaviest was almost 1 lb.

DET
Team 343

Re: I must admit...
 

I think many teams did this exact thing. Using a "lighter, Real Battery" is much different than a "dummy". It's completely legit but at the same time unfair to those teams who get stuck with the heavier batteries.
I have seen a ~2lb difference (12.2lb - 14lb) between some batteries. 2lb's is a lot of speed holes if you don't have the "right" battery to weigh in with.

My suggestion:

Rule: Battery must be easily removed in under 15 seconds.

Reasons:
1) Very few designs have broken that
2) Easy for battery removal weigh in after Systems check.

Team shows up, does all the tests (lights, air, etc.), then gets timed for battery removal, then weighs in without putting the battery back in.

This alleviates the 'dummy battery' problem, battery weight flux problem, and gives grounds for "changing" weight limit. Be it, "lower" to 120lbs [no bat] or "keep" at 130. (Keep in mind 12-14lbs + for battery when on field)

battery
 

The weight of exact same year, same model batteries will vary from 13.5 to 14.2.

I have heard of some rookie teams that weigh in with a "Dead" battery to save weight. That is what the veteran teams tell them to do.:yikes:

If any of you remember when we moved from the drill batteries to the current batteries the weight limit was increased 10lbs to be able to keep the weight limit the same. So there is no real reason to change the weight limit or weigh in without a battery.

Re: Batteries
 

As I understand the rules, that would be illegal, since you were only allowed to compete with the two 2003 batteries that were provided in the kit, irregardless of how many 2003 batteries you may have bought.

P.S. If you get to weigh in without the battery, people will just add 10 lbs more stuff on their robots, and the point is defeated.

Cory

Re: Re: Batteries
 

No.. the POINT of weighing without the batteries is for equality. As has been stated by a few people, not every battery has the same weight.

130lbs = 130lbs with battery.
130lbs with battery = 116-117 lbs of materals + 13-14 lbs battery.

Has your team ever had to make speed holes to cut a 1/2 lb? Why do that when you can grab a different battery and problem is solved? That's what many teams do. Weigh in with a lighter battery, inspect at 130lbs, then go in to the field at 131 lbs.

1lb can make the difference between an assembly working and not working. I say.. make it fair for all.

Re: Re: Re: Batteries
 

Brandon, this is a very good point.
I guess I didn't really understand "what all the fuss was about" until you phrased it like this.

I wonder if FIRST has ever considered this?
It seems like a trivial issue, but there is a definite something to it.

John

To put it within the moral idea of FIRST, on the job, you can't just ignore things such as power sources when trying to work in restraints.

Any other Ideas on this subject??

If you want to weigh in without a battery then you need to play the rounds without a battery....

; )

WC:cool:

I should really already know this but; what makes two batteries have a 1lb difference in them??

Is it just the manufacturer (obvious?), or how much it is charged, or other factors?

Combining physics and chemistry makes me ask the question wether or not the state of the chemical reaction inside adds to the weight of the battery itself.

Also, I am reminded of a video I saw of a NASCAR competiton where the NASCAR official inspected the restrictor plate for the engine seperately from the engine itself.

What they do is give the team their "controlled" size restrictor plate and right before they hand it over to the teams, they measure it on a controlled measurement device right in front of a team member. If the team member is unhappy with the way it looks or is measured on the device then, the team gets another one.

I wonder if this can be done with FIRST.