Re: Drivers' Meeting
 

This is to accomodate the new "delay" to check auton scores.

Re: Drivers' Meeting
 

I think the question by our team captain was more general and the answer, perhaps, more disturbing:
If something breaks on a robot such that it becomes an appendage, would penalties be incurred by contact with an opposing robot outside the bumper zone? Answer: Yes.

So, if you design and build a robot that is not intended to ever extend beyond the bumper zone, but a mechanical failure occurs such that now your robot has a loose piece that could contact a opposing robot outside of the bumper zone, you are now vulnerable to being penalized should the opponent drive into your broken part...
So the guy who was worried about his camera getting whacked better hope that it falls to the floor, because if the opposing robot who knocked it loose in the first place now comes back and hits it as it swings around by its cables might be able to collect penalty points for his alliance. It can't be this twisted, can it :ahh: ?

Probably not. However, I could imagine a portion of a shooter, or a piece of lexan coming loose from a robot and creating the potential for this penalty. So if this happens to your robot, you need to go on the defensive to prevent robot contact with your broken part. Get up your ramp and camp!

Re: Drivers' Meeting
 

This driver meeting thoroughly disgusted me.

1. Any robot that has anything that extends past the original size constraints (28x38x60) (not in the bumper zone) and touches by accident, coincidences or on purpose, will be penalized. The word incidental is not used in its proper definition in the rules. The definition of incidental touching means a robot will not be penalized if it touches the bumper zone first, stays in contact with the bumper zone, and then touches higher up. True incidental touches WILL STILL BE PENALIZED. That means if you have a dumper, expanding hopper, arm, wing, blocker, stick, tie wrap, something that sticks out by accident, you will be penalized if someone else touches that object.

2. Clarification of pinning rule. You can pin a robot for a few seconds and then you have to back away in any spot except for on top of the ramp. The clarification states that if you push a robot on either ramp, you can hold it forever. This gives big power robots lots of room to do whatever they want. If you were to push a robot up the ramp and say it was sideways you could hold your robot against it the entire match and get the points for the robot as well as "disabling the robot the entire match" Even though this rule may have been in the book the entire year, this is a serious blow to GP.

3. Bumper zone contact, (please if anyone knows this better than I do please comment) As I heard, if a robot pushes another robot in any position as long as the pushing was done in the bumper zone, and the opposing robot flips over, it is not the aggressors fault. Another serious blow to GP. This is giving the ability to easily disable a robot for the entire match. With the sharp ramps this year pushing a robot onto the ramp makes it very easy to tip. This makes me feel like this is turning into a destruction derby.

4. Autonomous and Corner Goals, Intentional ramming in auto is now illegal, and I firmly back this rule and this was a very good one. While that is a great addition, The rule considering robots protruding into a goal is absolutely ludicrous. Obviously the protruding rule was based first on safety. But the consequences are terrible, an entire robot alliance DQ'ed? While we can legally tip other robots. But the real ugly problem comes in with robot aggressors. If a robot were to push another robot into the goal, well you think there would be no penalty or maybe a penalty against the aggressor, right? Wrong. The team that gets pushed in gets the penalty, most people have pieces on their robot that extend more than 3 inches in a certain angle or even straight on. You could so easily push a robot straight into a goal beyond the 3-inch penetration with no effort. This is absolutely ludicrous, allowing robots to disqualify robots on purpose. We might as well have not put the time, effort, blood, and sweat into making shooters and ball handlers.

I would like to take this time to thank all the volunteers and referees that make FIRST possible. One of the great things I have learned this season is how to work with material handling. I am so thankful for that, FIRST basically gave me the opportunity to work on it. I feel with this current rule I believe everything has gone to waste. Many, many of us were not happy. Gracious for all the time the refs put in, but not happy campers. The situation has upset some teams designs so much, some feel that this group of new additions/clarifications have turned FIRST into battlebots. Some go so far as not coming back next year. This is a dire situation that needs to addressed for the sake of Gracious Professionalism. I know we can all do better than this.

-- FIRST team alumni, FIRST team mentor, FIRST volunteer, and FIRST Vex Judge
Peter

Re: Drivers' Meeting
 

Our robot has no apendages, and it would have to break in a pretty interesting manner in order to have a psuedo apendage, so I wasn't paying extremely close attention to all of the questions regarding them, but it seemed to me that a lot of the confusion was in the wording. I think what the ref's meant is that any contact would be subject to a penalty, whether it's actually called is at the discretion of the ref's. Therefore, if Team A has an apendage and Team B keeps running into it, it would seem logical that Team A would not be penalized, even though it is possible according to the rules. I could be wrong, but that conclusion makes the most sense, and seems to be consistant with previous FIRST competitions.

Re: Drivers' Meeting
 

This the definition of "incidental" the refs are using, right? So this type of contact is not penalized, correct?


As recently as this Q&A "Robot strategies intended to disrupt the aim of an opposing robot are acceptable and to be expected as long as they are not excessive." Where in the rules has this changed? The refs are not banning all disruptive autonomous strategies despite the rules and the Q&A are they?

I'm really confused :ahh: :ahh: .

Re: Drivers' Meeting
 

The refs are making new rules as the game goes on. And they must be using the elastic clause on the word excessive, to mean ramming.

Re: Drivers' Meeting
 

all i say to the whole waiting until the clock changes it BAH TO YOU REFS!!! its really gonna be hard for all 300+ teams to change what they learned at other regionals just for this one event... i reall REALLY dislike this one descion but everything else went great
and am very happy Dr. Brown is taking over since benji is MIA... cant wait for tommorows now todays competition...

Re: Drivers' Meeting
 

You're kidding right?

Just because you don't like how the rules will be called doesn't mean that they haven't existed for the last 4 months.

Re: Drivers' Meeting
 

I 100 percent agree with that, as stated in my earlier post.

Re: Drivers' Meeting
 

Just to be clear about what was said at the meeting - intentional ramming in autonomous mode only applies when the offending robot performs a long-distance, high-speed ram into a robot that hasn't moved from the starting box. If a robot intercepts a robot that has moved out of the box, all bets are off as far as intentional ramming. So if your robot consistently drives to the edge of the ramp to pour in ten balls, and a defending robot knocks you out, don't expect a ramming penalty to be called.

Re: Drivers' Meeting
 

Yes if it was accidental it is fine, I believe, disruption of auto will be ruled as fine, as long as these robots aren't driving full speed into another bot. It may be case by case depending on the infraction after the opposing bot is out of the box. We will have to see how it gets ruled if another bot rams one at fullspeed out of the box.

Re: Drivers' Meeting
 

It seems to me that a robot that is stationary in its starting box is protected against a high speed smash. An acceptable disruptive autonomous strategy (as I think may have even been described in the meeting) would be for the disrupting robot to slow down just prior to contact with a stationary autonomous shooter. Programmers, sharpen up those lines of code!

Re: Drivers' Meeting
 

I think you hit the nail on the head

Re: Drivers' Meeting
 

Incidental contact was identified as an harmless brush opn the way by. I actually stayed for all of that persons question, and left as Aiden moved on to the next person.

Re: Drivers' Meeting
 

Nope. The earlier post is correct. It appears that essentially "all bets are off if the target has moved out of the starting box."

Almost nothing in my 8 years of FIRST has been so discouraging as to be tipped in autonomous two matches in a row. I've got mentors and parents asking how this is different than Battle bots. I sincerely wish that when the first questions were asked that FIRST had changed the rules to prohibit autonomous motion on the defensive side of the field. At least at the regional level, teams were afraid of a DQ or other penalty.