Re: You write <G34> and <G35>
 

You're right...I'm sorry...

I hope the rules don't change in terms of aggressive driving and entanglement for next year. They were fine this year.

Re: You write <G34> and <G35>
 

In looking at fairness I proposed it only carries over for one or two matches. Yeah this does not make it perfect but it won't be. You could be overly agressive every second or third match and only get yellow cards and not get Dqed.

I'm looking at it from the standpoint of elims.

Say your first qualifying round your driver makes a mistake and rams into another robot partially breaking it. Honest mistake. You fix the problem and play nice and get more no yellow cards the rest of your match. You make it to the finals and your first match you have some questionable aggressive contact with another robot and the ref pulls another yellow card. I can't justify connecting that first mistake with your final aggressive to make a connection that would merit a DQ.

The truth is everyone loves to see the finals played out and to DQ a team and alliance for something the one team did in the first round of qualifiers.

So I would say either one or two matches the yellow would carry over. If you are aggressive enough to get cards in consectutive match I can make that correlation and justify the DQ because of your teams aggressive pattern.

Another solution to the finals problems could be to give everyone a clean slate for the elimination rounds (I don't care one way or the other on this, the advantages and disadvantages are kind of close to the same)

Re: You write <G34> and <G35>
 

Sigh. Before further trying to decipher any more of these posts, I suggest that the loyal reader look at the following webpage http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/ .

It's really a fun game, "how many logical fallacies can someone squeeze into one post". I know some people around here have some ill will towards lawyers, but constructing a sound logical argument is not a crime. I know we love our hyperboles, but c'mon.

This thread started with Aidan asking us how we would reinterpret pinning and entanglement if we had the chance. Suddenly we have sledgehammers falling from 196 ft. How did we get from point A to point B? Did I miss something here? Anyone, anyone? Bueller?

The best thing I've seen written in a while. Thank you.

Re: You write <G34> and <G35>
 

Since we have changed from rules to I can't build a decent robot thread I will again post. Team 188 built a 6 motor,2 speed transmition. Our robot can raise the 2X ball 13 feet in the air and cap over top of almost any robot between them and the stationary goal. We do not go on the platform but do hang. We are able to play with the toughest of them and survive. Did we retain damage you ask. You better believe it. Did we cry about it? No we went back to the pits and got to work. We had some intricate pulley system that another team accidently caught their robot on and pulled us both over. Mucho damage. I was even asked to come to the pits once my announcing was done to help fix problem. We knew that this might happen but decided to go the way we did. Should other robots back away ? no. I wouldn't expect our team to so why would I ask them to. As was stated in a previous post, better than I am able, it is better to win a hard fought match than have the match handed to you. It is even better to lose knowing you did your best than to give up.

I believe that FIRST has given us a great forum to showcase to the world. Science, engineering, math etc IS NOT BORING and we can prove it. Forget the yellow cards or red ones. All we should see is green for GO and the games begin.

On a personal note : I played racketball with a guy that was WAY better than me. If I ever sensed that he was letting up to make me feel good I would let him feel the sting of the ball on his back. Funny thing is that when that happened he played with more determination to WOOP me. Mission accomplished. :)

Re: You write <G34> and <G35>
 

Let's try to re-focus our thoughts and energy back into the original topic of the thread, shall we? There were some excellent discussions a page ago, and even though I am quite entertained by the image of KenW going after 229's bot (or vice-versa), I would hate to have to remove any future posts regarding that idea (although I wouldn't reject the idea of scorekeeper vs. robots if someone ever bring that up Q(^_^Q) ).

Just want to remind you that this thread has reached page 4, and it's harder and harder for everyone keep track of all points of the discussion. It would be nice if someone step up to the plate and organize this thread a little bit and point at a direction this discussion should continue onto. Or you can just go back to the original question posted by Adian.

Thanks for understanding~ I am still sick from the Atlanta trip, and even though I kept trying to read through this entire thread, I kept falling asleep half way.

Re: [moderated] You write <G34> and <G35>
 

In order to keep FIRST friendly and more sportsmanship oriented, and also to encourage offense I recommend a new penalty system be put into place.

Standard Rules:
1.No tipping.
2.No desctucive play.
3.No damage.
4.No entanglement.

Intentional violations of the standard rules allow a referee to disqualify a robot.

If a team is operating the robot in a manor that is questionable or is borderline breaking the rules, a yellow card is shown as a warning. Yellow cards are not comulative.

If a team accidentally violates the rules, a red card is shown and a robot is disabled for a period of time (I.E. 10 seconds).

Re: You write <G34> and <G35>
 

It's too bad that these two things violate existing rules.

If you want to build a robot that hums, you need to add an electrical actuator (a speaker). If it's not supplied in the kit, it violates the "motor" rules.

Holding hands is a form of entanglement. So, no good there.

Re: [moderated] You write <G34> and <G35>
 

Amy, you no longer have to wonder -- my intention of starting this thread was exactly that.

As we came out of the incredible weekend of Championship competition, there was an awful lot of "the refs should have done _____" or "FIRST should make a rule to ______"

I decided to give everyone a chance to show all of us how to fix the situation. (I really meant that.) There were some very good suggestions came out of the discussion, and I thank those posters for giving the difficult task a shot -- it is definately not easy to write an all-inclusive rule. More of you are aware how hard it is now, and that in itself is a good thing.

I am very amused at the posts that said (paraphrasing) "it is impossible to write such a rule... but here is what the refs should have done" or "what happened just isn't right -- someone should take it upon themselves to write a rule to fix this". I will say no more about those at the moment, other than those posts created a lot of noise in this thread that made it hard to follow the attempts that folks made to actually answer my challenge.

This is clearly still a big deal to alot of us. So, becasue of that, I would still like to see us come up with one or more solutions that address these issues. To that end, I am going to do the following:

1. Ask that this thread be ended with this post
2. Later tonight, start two new threads, which will be moderated from the get-go, one to deal with suggested rule wording for each issue
3. Ask the moderators not to approve any post to either of the two threads that does not address the situation in the form of a suggested rule.
4. Close each of the threads in a week, and forward the two threads to next years Game Committee for their consideration

Please note that I am not trying to stifle discussion. While the issue is fresh in our minds, I am trying to derive a solution which will improve the experience for all of us in the future. To get to that solution (or set of solutions) I feel that I need to focus us on those solutions -- kind of like in a brainstorming session when no individual gets to comment on another's idea until the brainstorming session ends. In a week, we can open up discussion of all the solutions that are presented.

Thank you to everyone who posted to this thread. Lots of great points have been made. Now lets take out our thinking caps -- make our brains hurt (as Woody would say) -- and find some answers.

:)

Aidan

Re: You write <G34> and <G35>
 

OOOOHHHH!!! File that one away in the "Ideas for the 2005 game" folder! :)

Actually, you did make a mistake (or assumption that led to a significant mistake). In the original argument, you stated the kinetic energy transfer of a 130 pound robot traveling 15 mph was equivalent to the impact of a 5 pound sledgehammer face traveling 76 mph. In terms of raw energy transfer potential, that may be true. However, it requires that the impact area of the robot-to-robot collision be limited to approximately 4 square inches (in your example, "catching a corner of the frame"), AND that 100 percent of the potential energy of the moving system be transferred through that impact area. For that to happen, the centers of mass of both robots, the center of impact, and the dymanic motion vectors of both robots would all have to be precisely colinear.

In reality, given the kinematics and dynamics of the typical FIRST robot, that assumption is fallacious. It is highly unlikely (bordering on virtually impossible) that the "impact energy vectors" for the robots (drawn through the center of mass and the impact point of each robot) will be colinear and opposite. The higher the divergence between these two vectors and this "maximum impact energy transfer state," the higher the proportion of translational energy that is converted to rotational energy (i.e causes both robots to spin around their respective centers of mass). In the example of catching a corner, the majority of the energy is dissipated as torque around the center of mass of each robot. The actual amount of energy transferred to the impacted robot is equivalent to kinetic energy * cos(abs(dynamic motion vector - impact energy vector)).

-dave

Re: [moderated] You write <G34> and <G35>
 

Ask that this thread be ended with this post - Great idea, in fact it's the best one that I have read (except my response about 20 pages back)
Let's try this one again - just as Aiden suggested.