Re: Important Rules - 2007 Season
 

I buy my safety glasses from Safety Glasses USA. I find their glasses to be cheap and stylish. I have never had any problems even with my small orders (2 or 3 pairs < $10.) This page on their site talks about the Z87 rating.

Re: Important Rules - 2007 Season
 

Jak,

I believe they posted these rules early for the exact reason of letting us pour over them. How many teams immediately jump into the game and robot design, and overlook the shipping, competition, and safety requirements? I know that we don't even look at the shipping rules and procedures until the weekend before ship!

Take the time now to understand and question the rules. FIRST is making it easier for us, so that we don't need to cram everything into the 6 week build period.

BEN

Re: Important Rules - 2007 Season
 

Really?!
I guess I'm hanging out with the wrong volunteers...

Re: Important Rules - 2007 Season
 

1. Combing over the rules now can lead to clarifications later, leading to a better game for all of us.
2. It's good to be prepared for the road ahead (just in case the robot needs more last minute work, or you need to budget for a new crate)
3. Safety rules should apply to building the robot, not just at competition
4. It's just ungracious and unprofessional to get the game ahead of time, it takes all the fun out of the idea of a deadline.

Now back to your scheduled topic.

Re: Important Rules - 2007 Season
 

also look at it this way, with loud music playing next to you, how are you supposed to hear important announcements that the Pit Announcer makes

you and me both

Re: Important Rules - 2007 Season
 

That seems to clarify that a coach can still be a student.


James


Edit: I would also like to thank whoever decided to mark things with the word New in red, it makes it very easy to find changes.

Re: Important Rules - 2007 Season
 

I understand frustation like this when these threads are relatively small, but once everything gets going, and these threads are >50 pages long, its going to be nearly impossible to read every single post.

Re: Important Rules - 2007 Season
 

I fairly certain that only the GDC and FIRST senior management know the game before kickoff.

Some key volunteers find out about field elements and gamepieces in advance (starting a few weeks ago), but these adventurous souls must:

1) have no team affiliation, and 2) sign a secrecy agreement.

I know the guy who does this mostly thankless job for the St. Louis region -- he's building whatever it is in his basement right now (and cursing the incomplete and ever changing documentation), so I won't be visiting his house until after kick-off.

Re: Important Rules - 2007 Season
 

Don't forget those few individuals who get to build the field the day before at the kick-off events, but are kept locked in the room till the game is shown. :P

Re: Important Rules - 2007 Season
 

I wasn't concerned with the weight. Empty, we have one of the lightest crates around. What I'm concerned with is that they are apparently mandating the use of plywood for crate construction. There are other alternatives that can be made lighter and are just as effective.

On the other hand if we need to build a new, conforming crate I'd rather get started now. Assuming they don't declare the crate to be part of the robot and therefore must be built during Build season in another, yet to be revealed, section of the rules.

Re: Important Rules - 2007 Season
 

You should ask people too move, rather than assume they will move. Also it is hard to hear the pit announcements with all the other noise in the pits. I like that they said your cart needs to be in your pit area when not transporting your robot. It gets annoying when peoples carts start getting left in the way a little bit. For the most part we just leave BOB on the cart and work on him there.

Re: Important Rules - 2007 Season
 

There'll still be cheesy music playing at the regionals! So whats worse, the cheesy music or your own music banging on top of it?

Re: Important Rules - 2007 Season
 

I agree completely with Ben and Conor about releasing these rules early. For one thing, the change to using the ANSI Z87 standard is incredibly important. I've seen countless people wearing standard eye glasses with those flimsy side-shields. Those don't work. No, no. They REALLY don't because your glasses aren't safety glasses to begin with.

I am posing a challenge to everyone who uses power tools: Take a pair of real safety glasses (they have "Z87" or "Z87+" imprinted in small letters near the edge of the lens). Remove the lens from the frame (it should snap apart - you don't have to break it). Now take a drill with a phillips bit and put a deck screw into the lens. Awesome, huh? It DOESN'T crack. Now take the same lens and hold it steady on a flat surface. Take your favorite hammer and hammer the lens (not the screw). Really hammer it. It doesn't shatter, it only scratches it!

Now are you convinced? If not, it's your sight that's at risk.

P.S. Please don't use that pair of safety glasses again :) But you should keep them around to demonstrate to those who complain about this requirement.

Re: Important Rules - 2007 Season
 

I'll second that. :cool:

I haven't read anything about no I-pods with ear buds yet. :rolleyes:

Re: Important Rules - 2007 Season
 

.... but don't forget to wear safety glasses while trying this experiment...an eye injury doing that would not only be tragic, but it would be pretty ironic :cool: