Well said Chris. Good luck

Perhaps as disturbing this teather ruling was (and believe me, I was upset), I was even more upset at the "extending under the goal rule". In Cleveland I saw a match where a team moved a goal over top of a tongue type extension. They were screaming for a DQ (which, if you strictly interpret the rules, they were right). The judges called it a non-DQ, saying that the mechanism was not deployed under the goal. That makes sense, and maybe that was how FIRST intented the rule (despite multiple clarifications on the yahoo groups that something as small as a piece of string under the goal would be a DQ).

Then, in Chicago this past weekend, at the drivers' meeting on Thursday we were told that as long as something was not deployed under the goal, it would not be given a DQ. This makes sense to me, as they are trying to be consistent with prior regionals. So good so far.

Then, in a match on Saturday morning, our team was DQ'd for being under the goal. What was under the goal? Our whole robot. Another team had managed to push the goal up on top of our chassis so that our drive wheels (6" dia) were under the goal. Now tell me - how was our chassis deployed under the goal? I'm really interested to hear the logic behind that one. Sure, right after the match we put a bar higher up on the chassis so that would happen again, but I still can't believe someone can claim that we deployed our robot under the goal.

This was very upsetting to me, and summed up a large part of the competition season for me. I don't really care one way or the other if tethers should be allowed, or what "under the goal" means. But what I do care about is that the rules be consistedly called, and that rulings aren't changed at competition.

I understand Woody's point - sure, those teams put a lot of time and effort into a mechanism, even if it wasn't legal. But if I was a government contractor, and the Air Force says to me "hey Erik, build me a bomber", and I build a really cool fighter instead, does that mean I get the contract, or should be allowed to compete against the other bomber teams, just because I spent a lot of time on it? What about a team that shows up and weighs 150lbs? That's against the rules, but they spent a lot of time on it, so should they be allowed to compete too? Selective rule enforcement is very poor planning. For a while on Saturday I was seriously considering (and I know a few other teams were as well) leaving FIRST and starting a battlebot team (with the students still, of course). At least there I know what the rules are, and that they won't change.

Like I said - I actually sort of agree with the way the rules are being called now. But.....that's not the way my rulebook read in January, and it isn't fair to up and change the rules midway through the competition.

This was a very sore point for quite a few teams in Chicago this weekend, and was a major downer on what would have otherwise been a great weekend.

I think you have many, many people in agreement with you Erik (and just as ticked off too) .

As for rules, the auto industry is the same, we can't design an assembly line for unibody small cars to build body on frame big trucks no matter how much time we spend on it or how cool it looks and works. I hope we all learn from these mistakes and as far as I am concerned write this year off. Next year I want Black and White rules not the huge gray area of this year. Instead of tha yahoo board why not a forum here with the restriction that only FRCOps can respond to posts it beats looking in two places. Hopefully next year the game will allow for the same robots that are great throughtout qualifying to also be great in the finals, that will end the other controversy over QP's. Don't get me wrong on that comment though there are some unbelievable robots out there with serious power and excellent designs. In my opinion though a robot that is designed to seed high will have compromises (unless you had the time to have a bunch of interchangable parts) for the finals. By this I mean that to have a ball grabber/harvester you took away some of the weight and motors you could have used for more power or traction and while you would have done worse in qualifying you would do better in the finals which is where all the glory is when the dust settles. And even though it is not supposed to be about winning it sure looks like teams have a bunch more fun getting trophies than packing up early in the pits (Trust me I have been on both sides)
I am looking forward to this weekend for our second reigonal to see how it goes and if any of our little tweaks work as expected.

The situation you've described is not analagous to this one at all. A more accurate analog to your described situation would be if someone designed a robot to compete in last year's game and entered it in this year's competition.

FIRST presented a game this year where scoring devices like mice and tounges and extenders were to be expected. During kickoff, the most asked questions were concerning long robots that can be in two places at once. Three out of every four questions to the yahoo boards were about long robots. If they really wanted to prohibit tethers, and didn't think of it before the season, they had plenty of time to say something specific, like: "All non-rigid attachments more than X inches long are illegal"

They chose not to. Instead, they said:

M16. Referees may disallow mechanisms that present a risk of entanglement.

-and-

DQ3. Strategies aimed solely at the destruction, damage, tipping over or entanglement of robots are not in the spirit of the FIRST Robotics Competition and are not allowed.

In fact, when the FRCTechs did issue a ruling saying that all tethers are illegal, they retracted it a few hours later.

That says to me, "Design a tether that won't entangle, and you'll be fine."

And I was right. And the ruling was right, because it makes for a more interesting game. A 20% successful extender is much less a factor in a game than a 90% successful mouse bot.

In my opinion, those that couldn't fathom a non-entangling tether during the build season are having trouble seeing them now, even when shown numerous examples of them.

As far as the whole tape measure thing goes, I agree with you - tape measures were specifically disallowed - get them off the robots. But give the tethers a rest. You won't get entangled in a well-made tether (which includes all of them I've seen), and the game's designers obviously expected to see them.

And as for this comment:

What do you mean by that? This year has been great. In both the design challenges in the build phase and the quality of the competition, it has far surpassed last year (my first). And we haven't even had nationals yet!

I don't mean write the year off as nothing was accomplished, and that we aren't having a great time, because we are having quite a bit of fun, this is the first time the robot hasn't broke at a reigonal (I think they need to drive it harder). I meant writing this year off as far as the rulings and any more rule changes. This year we tried building the robot different than past years: ahead of schedule. The last two years we literally shipped the robot broken and incomplete in week 6. This year we were essentially done by week 3 fully driving and having much more fun. To accomplish this we had to go by the rulings in weeks 1 & 2 expecting that nothing major would change only small clarifications. I have said it again and again the early rulings 'to my team' looked like you would get a DQ for 'almost' any tether and carpet damage was also a strict DQ. Almost every tether I have seen poses a 'risk' of being entangled maybe only 10% but its still a risk. I have since seen that neither of these are the case either by rule changes or by refs calling em like they see em.

As for my analogy (Building assembly lines that build cars which is what I do for a living), we (GM) do give an exact specification to our build shops that they must follow exactly including wiring, piping, and mechanical. Deviations from this spec, even if they are creative, are removed before shipping to the final plant so that when 25 different zones show up from different build shops everything matches and integrates together. What does this all mean to me? I have to follow strict specs every day and they rarely change and even more rarely in the middle of a project.

I like FIRST and what it stands for, I have alot of fun, the main reason I am in it is because I love to see what teams come up with both students and engineers. Every year (this is my 4th) that I come to the events I am amazed at the design and execution by these teams in just 6 weeks. I like the contact and the defense of this year but our robot is done now and we will finish the year out without major mods and have fun. sans send home device.

I think I don't need to post to any more send home threads since everyone probably knows where I stand on the issue by now.

No, they were not! Before that clarification was posted, FIRST was using Team Update 6 to determine whether a tether was legal or not. And, if you read it carefully, it doesn't disallow ANYTHING. It does state that what presents a risk of entanglement is subjective and it's up to the referees to decide if it's legal or not.
On practice day, when we first deployed our tape measure, the head referee came to our pits and said it was illegal. After showing him the Update 6, he agreed with us and just wanted to call FIRST in Manchester to make sure that the ruling would be consistent in every regional.
We could use our measure tape, it never got entangled (it did get under the goal once, DQing us, but it wasn't stuck), and it helped us winning the regional.

William Jennings Bryan, I'm not.
 

I stand corrected. I like this ruling better anyway.

But FIRST doesn't! Any they shouldn't!

The rules that FIRST gives include some hard-and-fast rules (similar to your build specs) like the weight limit, allowable parts, starting envelope, and the 60 Amp breaker, but they largely consist of good faith rules, like entanglement and "malicious intent". These rules limit the design space a robot can occupy, but they don't pinpoint it. FIRST is imitating life.

Every design problem an engineer has will have gray areas. Otherwise it would be a fabrication issue, not a design issue. Actually, that's not entirely correct. Most manufacturing jobs have gray areas as well.


The reason I keep writing about this topic is because those who are outraged by the "relaxing" of the entanglement rules have created some sort of moral high ground here. They have been depicting those with mice on their robots as people who didn't read the rules and have since got away with something. This irks me.

We read the same rules as you. We read the same answers to the same questions as you. We asked ourselves how we could win this game the same as you. And where you saw a sign in front of tether designs that said, "Do not enter," we saw one that said, "Tread lightly."

Good luck to all.

I couldn't stop myself from posting to this.
Many good points have been made where I expected no clear defence, and yet I am still annoyed.
In effect I read the ruling as saying because alot of teams built what was warned as an entanglement (I really got the impression that the tolerance for entanglment would be very low. DQing on the safe side) And then to find this out AFTER shipping!??!??

I myself have wondered about the 130 pound rule, the height rules, the 1 battery rule, but they are rules. there on paper. Wasn't the tether issue on paper also?

I am more concerned with next year. Do we simply build based on what we read the rules to say? or try and clarify them first? Seems like this year we should have gone with the first idea.

BattleBotsIQ is talking regionals eventually. We always say that FIRST isn't really about the robot but about the message of science and technology. So does it matter whether or not the robot doesn't survive the competition?

My 2 cents

Eric Stokely
Team 360 Revolution
Formally of team 258 The Sea Dawgs
"Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want"

more gas for the fire!!
 

For Erik-

Were they expecting tethers?

Certainly-
recall: kickoff - Dean Kamen quote : "if you can make a robot which can reach both end zones I'll give you 2 Kamen points"

AKA: a 130 lb robot stretched 30 feet= tether

FRC ops- " a telescoping arm, while flimsy, might make a suitable device"- in same pgh disqualifying tape measures.

Got any other design which does the job and isn't long and thin?

I agree that a lot of things out there which are getting by are contrary to the original rulings and are frustrating. We originally were going to extrude a tape measure only to have that directly outlawed. Still teams are using them. We reengineered to follow the rules as posted. That's all anyone can do. It's a game.

FIRST has always had rules changes during the season since we got in 6 years ago. It's a part of the game and not worth getting upset about,

As for the airplane analogy you posted above- if everybody always thought the same way and made bombers the old fashioned way we wouldn't have stealth bombers of today. Outside the box thinking is to be commended, not criticized. That's why FIRST gives a Xerox Creativity Trophy.

Hey- if we cross paths and you don't like our device- run it over. Everybody else seems to!! We'll survive

We just want to have some fun here.

Or have I stretched this too far.....
:D
WC

I agree. They realized that it is kind of hard to build a sturdy device to reach back 30 feet while staying under the weight limit. It's basically extra baggage to the bot, so the became more lenient on tape measures and rolls of tape and of the such.
If you disagree with the rule change block the "tether".
Also, if you want, try dancing on our robot's "mini me". It's fun and has been done before.

With a 5 minute modification at WMR we were able to move any tether out there including tape measures and lexan sheets and we are still waiting for the chance to see a mouse also. To do this our robot has a basket that rides on the carpet made to get balls, simple little ' L forks' on each edge ride along on the carpet also and slide under anything that's also on the carpet, from there raise the basket and take it where you want. Don't have a basket? No problem on the front edges of your frame bring down a teflon 'L' piece to ride on the carpet and you are all set it will pick up the device instead of running over it with your wheels. I will post the pictures tomorrow of where we stole a tape measure and took it back to our zone. The chief also did an excellent job at placing the goals in front of tethers as they were advancing out which was pretty great strategy also.

If we weren't so close to the weight limit... hmm. oh well.
good idea.

<<Yes, the rules on tethers have been loosened. And, we apologize. Why? We had to. Please read on.

Is this unfair to teams that correctly and strictly interpreted our rules updates as posted during the season? Probably. We know it...>>

OK here is the part that has been bugging me, I know you are all trying to figure out what this impact on me personnelly has been :-)

They changed the rules, for all the reasons stated in the posts so far.
They did this AFTER the robots shipped. After we planned and decided what to build. They changed the rules because of what teams brought to a regional. They realized that the strict interpretation would have DQ'd these particular robots (I am assuming, I haven't actually seen the tethers in question)
Thier own words.
<<Is this unfair to teams that correctly and strictly interpreted our rules updates as posted during the season? Probably.>>
And yet they did it anyway.
This is what is bugging me.

They decided it was better to piss off teams that followed the rules.
In what world is this a good plan?

I agree that tethers make for exciting game play. I agree we now have to live with the new ruling. But it still gets to me that I only heard of this AFTER our robot was in a box in drayage. (Actually this arrived on my computer as we were competing in Seattle on Sat. I read it when I got home that night)

Thanks I feel better

Eric Stokely
Team 360 Revolution
Formally of team 258 The Sea Dawgs
"Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want"

You need to do this to the tether to make you feel better

(See picture)

For Wayne C.

Sorry for the delayed reply - I don't check this forum all that often - I just got bored during a break in class today.

I'm not sure if my point was entirely clear (though it seems like Matt Reiland and Eric Stokely get it). I'm not mad at the way the rule is written now - to me, it actually make sense. And, I'm not saying that tether teams are "bad", nor did I indend this to be a "hey my tether is really cool" thread. However, I am upset that the rule was changed, after ship, as mentioned in the original post in this thread by a FIRST representative.

I remember Dean saying that at kickoff - but after we read the rules, we decided that to do that would require a rigid member, which we didn't have the weight for. Granted, we still don't have the weight for a non-rigid tether, but we could have designed around it. Between the teather rule change (no matter what anyone says, it was changed, as admitted in the original post in this thread) and the "something under the goal" rule change (to quote the driver meeting in chicago "I know that's not what the rule says, but that's how we're going to call it"), I'm a little upset. So to answer your question, sure I expected tethers - I just thought that they would be rigid members on wouldn't be allowed to extend under the goal. In fact, we were a little worried about being able to drive a goal over top of such a rigid extension. We didn't think that non-rigid tethers would be allowed due to the "risk of entanglement". The risk is still there, even if it is small.

Don't get me wrong - I still had a great year. We had some problems in Chicago, but losing in the semi's to Wildstang and the TechnoKats isn't bad (especially considering we're all college students).

But........

The larger, FIRST process issue, is what really gets me. And the "think outside of the box" analogy I don't think applies. I'm all for thinking outside the box - our old team, 128, had a drive train one year that rotated around the robot (1998). But...... it still must fit within the rules. Eric again brings up the point - why are these rules different than the others? Can I think outside of the box, and be 135lbs, and still compete? I'm not grossly overweight, so I'm just slightly bending the rules, right? What's the difference between the two?

All I'm saying is that FIRST needs to evaluate their processes in the off-season. I don't really care one way or another what the rules state in January, as long as they are the same rules I compete against in March.