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.