Re: Interesting Q/A's
 

Hey! They answered the question on everyone's minds (other than why Dave wasn't wearing a Hawaiian shirt at Kickoff):

(And thanks for the props. I figured that Super Secret Widget of Graciously Professional Doom was more fun to say than "hopper." ;) )

Re: Interesting Q/A's
 

Does the "Speed Trap" come with an Official State Trooper????
Do you get a ticket or just a warming????
(this is what happens to your brain after the shipoff- still trying to recover)
;)

Re: Interesting Q/A's
 

Here's the other question on the mind.

HOWEVER:
So, no penalty as long as you're showing the intent to make a backbot, no matter how you do it. If opponent pushed your robot across the line, it should be doable to push him back. Just make sure your bot dies near the glass, so it takes them forever to push them across.

I sure hope this situation won't happen. Waste a bunch of time for both alliances.

Re: Interesting Q/A's
 

Question:
Answer:

Re: Interesting Q/A's
 

But who gets to jockey there bot's position last? At the Winter Warzone Scrimmage they had the red alliance change their position within the bos last during finals but what about qualifiers?

Re: Interesting Q/A's
 

During finals, they have said the higher ranking team gets last positioning of robots.

In qualifiers I suppose they'll just have to flip a coin.

Re: Interesting Q/A's
 

The point is NO ONE DOES. You have to tell the field manager what position all your bots will be in BEFORE you put them out. So pretty much you put them out blind to where the other alliance is putting their's. This is for qualifiers.

Re: Interesting Q/A's
 

I thought that the jockeying only occurred in elimination rounds, depending on who was the higher ranked alliance, they got to place after the other alliance in the first match, then second match they switched. If there was a tiebreaker 3rd match, I forget what happened, maybe just the same as 1st match.

I don't know if there was any jockeying for qual matches, I don't think there was any rule about it. It seemed sometimes teams would hang back until they saw where the others were being placed, but sounds like this year when you get queued up you will have to tell the queuer, so that on-field jockeying shouldn't occur. Wonder if they will have anyone enforcing that as the robots go onto the field.

Edit: Good grief, 2 other posts during mine.

And ps. I wouldn't use the "ram" word lightly. The ramming penalties still apply during automode, so don't expect to have a "ramming" automode and get away with it too easily.

Re: Interesting Q/A's
 

No robots left... nothing better to do!

Re: Interesting Q/A's
 

Hm.

Not certain why it's ok during the match but not at the start of the match. But ok.

Re: Interesting Q/A's
 

Make a couple BCD switches and place them on your OI. Select your opponents position just before autonomous begins.

Re: Interesting Q/A's
 

Ha! I was not going to say it but that is what we were gonna do!

Re: Interesting Q/A's - Chicken
 

I'm not likening this. This means there could be more penalties and other small stupid quarrels about "O he wasn't in the right position". But then I do see the good in it. I like the intent but that puts even more work on the queuing manager. Hmm. I hope teams are prepared to talk about strategy before they get up in line...

Re: Interesting Q/A's
 

:ahh: :ahh: :ahh: :ahh: :ahh:
Hold on one second! We have been told to hold the FIRST Q&As answers to be rules not interpretations! WHAT IS GOING ON!

Re: Interesting Q/A's
 

I don't really understand this.

Either they are official, or they are not. They can't be UNofficial and then be used by all the refs/judges/inspectors as a basis to make calls against something. That just doesn't make sense to me.

There are a lot of good questions in the Q/As that were never released in Updates, but probably should be to be "official". There's a lot of good game/rules Q/As, but not a lot of game/rules updates. If we're going to have a Q/A to clarify the written rules or settle interpretation differences, then why can't they be official rules or incorporated into updates...

This implies Q/As are official:
Yet they say they are not official.
So basically, "when necessay" is when we see a call made that goes against what the Q/A system says, then we can whip them out of our back pocket and show where we justify our argument.

So maybe they aren't official "rules", but they will be considered official "rulings" when the time comes. To me, it's the same thing I guess.

Re: Interesting Q/A's
 

I was the one who asked the question. I also know that you are not allowed to bring rules to the refs. Inspectors may be another issue. I also stated in my question that only an answer in the official updates would be a valid response. How can something that is not official state that they have the official interpretations? Last year teams were told that it didn't matter what the Q&A said it was only the official updates that mattered. I was trying to clarify that this year but seem to have only muddied the water.

Re: Interesting Q/A's
 

They said in the referenced link to your question that if you want to show the officials the Q/As, then to print them out and take them with you. So long as it's a student driver/operator/HP, they should be able to show them the Q/As and get some consideration. Of course, I'm sure that may depend on the nature of the head ref... but I would hope that FIRST tells them in their training to at least be willing to review something.
http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread.php?t=428
While they say they aren't official rules, they can use them to make official calls.

Like I said, might depend on the head ref's nature as it has in the past, but I would hope Ref training smooths that out.

Re: Interesting Q/A's
 

It may be something new but I have seen people approach the head ref with rules in hand and they were sent away.

Re: Interesting Q/A's
 

I have never had a bad expierence with a head ref where they just sent away a student, so long as the student stays calm and collected a ref is usually willing to listen to anything, just don't question the call so much as ask them to explain it, and then try to argue it (maybe)

Re: Interesting Q/A's
 

I agree that head refs are great to talk with and explaining calls. If however someone comes up with rules in hand, that is another issue.

Re: Interesting Q/A's
 

Yet another Fix-It Window question...

And big ups to 386 on this one...

Re: Interesting Q/A's
 

Going in goal more than 3" regardless of who caused it... DQ! Drive carefully opponents!


Don't ram someone at high speed or excessively in automode!

Re: Interesting Q/A's
 

It'll probably be deleted, but I caught this spam:

[quote] Hello from Publidirecta (Spain)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Good afternoon, we are a Spanish company called Publidirecta, dedicated to different services.

Re: Interesting Q/A's
 

Mind removing the link? If not it's as bad as they are (improves their search engine results when sites link to them)

Re: Interesting Q/A's
 

This is not specified in the rules. I looked it up right after UTC because I saw Alliance Captains not on the drive team. Some teams will have to make some changes.

Re: Interesting Q/A's
 

Andy,

If by "not specified in the rules" you mean "these words do not exist in the rules", then I agree.

I'm not sure what FIRST is doing here... It looks like they are referencing a different rule book than we have.

We have always selected our alliance captain from outside of the drive team.

We will make changes if and when the rules change.

Mike

Re: Interesting Q/A's
 

No, they aren't. Make sure you aren't mentally inserting rules that do not exist when you read the answer.

No where in the rules does it say that the DRIVER, HUMAN PLAYER or COACH positions have to be filled by the same person throughout the entire competition. Teams can swap out these positions throughout the competition. All teams have to do is pass the DRIVER, HUMAN PLAYER or COACH button to whatever person on the team that you want as your representative, and away you go. For the 30 minutes it takes to complete the alliance selections, any student on the team can be assigned as COACH (or whatever), and then they pass the position and the button off to someone else. That way, the team can have whoever they want as the representative during alliance selections (as long as it is a student), then have whoever they want as the members of the drive team during the matches.

They way this answer was worded, and particularly when examined in the context of the wording of the original question, seems to indicate that FIRST was adressing a different issue. The wording of the original question can be interpreted as an attempt to make the Alliance Captain a fifth position on the drive team (in addition to the COACH, DRIVERS and HUMAN PLAYER). This answer makes it clear that you can't do that, and that the team is limited to no more than four members of the drive team out on the field (which keeps things consistent with Rule <G31>). I think that they have properly addressed that issue, without restricting which particular individual from the team may be temporarily assigned as the team representative during the alliance selections.

-dave

Re: Interesting Q/A's
 

When I saw the alliance captain, the person with the bib, standing in the queing area during their match at UTC , I decided to read the rules again. This what happens when you have been in FIRST for a while, rules change. I can remember when the bib was not allowed to be removed once placed on the alliance captain and had to be with the drive team during matches.

Does the above ruling require the bib to be worn during the match by a member of the drive team? If so, it should be enforced.

In either case, I have my driver be the Captain/Representative. He/she knows what's expected for alliance picking.

Re: Interesting Q/A's
 

http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread.php?t=847

<R59> doesn't seem to be the right rule for disallowing bluetooth on the OI, as it deals with custom circuits on the robot.

Re: Interesting Q/A's
 

Section 7.13.1 bans two-way radios, but that's about all that I can see in the rules concerning off-board devices. Like Joe said, it's pretty clear from the rest of the rules that the controls (and things that interface with them) are not covered as custom circuits (see <R57>).

I don't think Bluetooth would be a problem, technically speaking, because it operates at 2.4 GHz (not 900 MHz like the radios) and uses pseudorandom frequency-hopping at 1.6 KHz between 79 channels (as a security measure).

As a practical matter, Bluetooth could be one more manifestation of the unwritten rule that communication from outside the alliance station is not allowed. (The team in question isn't asking to do this, but I'd speculate that FIRST wants to avoid this situation.)

Re: Interesting Q/A's
 

Tubing rules
This response is not quite correct. <R100> allows 2005's tubing (i.e. SMC TIUB07, not Freelin-Wade), cylinders and solenoid valves, subject to the usual limits. Furthermore, <R26> extends this to any "previous year's cylinder, valve, or tubing", despite the apparent discrepancy with <R100>. However, 3/8" tubing, since it has never been in the kit, is clearly illegal.

Previous years' tubing, even of the same size as this year's tubing isn't "identical" to the 2006 tubing. (We don't apply "same ratings" ≈ "identical" to other pneumatic components, so I think that there's a precedent that supports my criticism.)