What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

(I'm hoping this is the correct forum. Please move if necessary.)

I've got engineers here who each want to fill the 40 pounds of withholding allowance with their gear. Each one has valid reasons for their suggestions. So, I'm wondering what are other teams holding out?

Thanks,

Trying to Help
Team 1729

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

We are withholding:
the basket from our manipulator
the electronics board
4 wheels (for the spare chassis)
2 reference wheels and their encoders
the camera and its mount

basically the manipulator group that had the most issues, and the control system for the autonomous testing.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

control system (DS + cRio + power board)

a TON of unneded spare parts

lots of little peices of scrap metal, we're underweight and plan to add the extra weight at competition.

possible new version of about half our manipulation system

grr.

-Z

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

actually nothing that goes on the robot:D


but we are planning on making a spare Spinning Tube of Death to test with(the motor gets overloaded sometimes when we have alot of balls in their) shorter tubing

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

Just a few sensors and some metal braces that still need some finishing. And the driver station. Maybe 10 pounds at most.

We will be bringing probably 50 pounds of raw materials, and maybe 175 pounds of various fasteners (standard hardware) to share with other teams. But that's all COTS stuff and isn't part of our 40 pounds.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

-A piece of body paneling that isn't finished.
-The Camera (we plan to obtain another cRIO with which to tweak programming)
-Some odds and ends that may or may not ever touch the 'bot.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

Our whole robot is 38.2 pounds, so we decided to just leave it and cut costs on shipping.





Just kidding...Electro board and camera are left, will ad some more stuff to those 40 pounds...

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

Whole shooter tower and turret, all 30 pounds of it.

We are going to mount it on our test chassis and use it to continue software development.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

Ours will pretty much be spare motors, parts, and raw material.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

School and team name and sponsor stickers....

I think the rest of the stuff we're bringing is COTS, although we might bring the prototype wood chassis if we have room? it's only 18 lbs, and it's slightly entertaining

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

custom carbon fiber robot, eh? ;) maybe Styrofoam robot? :P
oh wait i know: blimp robot!

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

For 1618:

-School/sponsor logos
-Vinyl to complete the team's blackout look--imagine how they wrap cars, and apply to a robot.
-Spare 545 motors with the BaneBots pinion pressed on

I'm not sure what exactly 2815 will be bringing.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

We removed our turret with shooter and the electronics to run it (our small electronics board +1 Jag from the side wall of the 'bot)

Not sure what the final weight on these parts was, but it should be well under 40 lbs.

We may be adding upgrade parts for the first conveyor (deeper Gates belts to prevent slipping) and the intake roller (investigating ways to make it faster).

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

If timing belts are slipping, they need a lot more tension; making them wider only increases the force you can transfer through them.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

The belt that is on there is tight as a drum. It was tensioned into place by moving one of the parts with a clamp and does not appear to flex at all when pushed on. It is not one of the 5mm kit belts, it has a much shallower profile. We are looking at belts with a deeper profile, not wider belts.

We have a nearly identical 2nd conveyor running perfectly using some fo the 5mm kit belts.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

The belt that is on there cannot get any tighter, it was tensioned into place using a clamp and does not appear to flex at all if you push on it. It is not one of the kit belts it is one with a much shallower tooth profile that we got for free from a mentor's work. We are looking at replacing it with some of the kit 5mm belts after we find some local teams not using the parts we need and we calculate what belt length we need to purchase.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

Our robot was built to take advantage of the withholding allowance from the beginning. The drive modules detach, as a unit, from each side of the frame, and the control module is completely detachable, too.

Now we just need to build a dummy chassis to mount the modules on to and we've got five weeks of traction control and driving practice before Seattle.


(And, yeah... we could sure use it!)


Jason

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

We're keeping our control system, part of the turret, and we are bringing in our redesigned rollers.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

ARGGGG! You always beat me to posting

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

If it's a wrong/shallow profile belt, fair enough. If you're looking to buy more 5mm pitch belts or timing belt sprockets, SDP/SI has a wide selection, including a ton of really light polycarbonate timing belt pulleys with aluminum hubs.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

I'm curious as to how you plan to "obtain" another cRIO.. We are in a similar situation regarding camera.. Our algorithm to detect targets takes about 2 seconds to run, blocking :yikes: We would love to keep the cRIO at home for these crucial few weeks, but decided against it because of the dangers of plugging everything in wrong.
Plus, "obtain" sounds slightly illegal.. I like it..

--Jordan

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

Even properly tensioned belts can slip if they are not being used in the correct situation.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

Maybe its just tiredness setting in... but I was rereading all of the Withholding allowance rules, and being that it is 40lbs of FABRICATED items, this means things like anything in the electronics system (other than fabricated wires), ie speed controllers, camera (w/out mount), cRio, wireless bridge, etc dont count... Am I reading that right? I couldnt find anything in the Q&A or rules to contradict that. (Although I think my electrical team would think it insane to unplug any of the board other than the basic controls to keep!).

We are only keeping the control system basics, likely the camera, our lexan panels to add stickers, and we are going to do some upgrades to our conveyor system.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

Be VERY careful about how you are interpreting "control system" and how it applies to this case. "Control system" does not equal "cRIO" does not equal "control electronics board" does not equal "operator console" does not equal "driver station." If there is any question about whether your "control system" is a FABRICATED ITEM (and therefore must be included within the WITHHOLDING ALLOWANCE weight limit) or an unmodified COTS item (and therefore permitted into the competition by Rule <R35>), - PLEASE - ask for an official determination via the official FIRST Q&A system. Do not rely on an unofficial opinion (including this one) for this topic. This is not an area where you want to have problems. Don't let bad information be the cause of a lot of heartburn at the competitions.

-dave



.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

We're witholding bumpers, one piece of material from our hopper, & some side panels just so we can get our sponsors & team number on them before the competitions.
All these things together are way under 40 lbs, so we're good to go. :D

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

Some relevant Q&As are:

http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread.php?t=11913

http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread.php?t=11854

Of course, since the crates are pretty much sealed by now, this might come a little bit late, but it should be pretty easy to have items such as the Jaguars (so long as they still contain their magic smoke) and cRio count as COTS. Gears and motors, perhaps, a little less so.

Jason

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

We're still weeks away from competition and I've already got heartburn.

First, consider this Q&A response. For the sake of avoiding word-mincing, note that this question is clearly about "strip[ping] the robot of many expensive but easily installed COTS items before shipment" and "bring[ing] all those COTS items under R35". The answer indicates that wheels removed from a robot are considered COTS, a disassembled cRIO is considered COTS, and a Toughbox assembled per the directions is considered to be COTS.

Now consider this more recent Q&A response. I certainly wouldn't consider any part that has been previously installed on a robot to be "brand new", particularly not something that is obviously in a different form factor than typically presented by the vendor (in the case of the Toughbox example).

I'd like to call myself "reasonably astute", as required by the second link, but I can't reconcile these responses for the life of me. Help?

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

Jason,
Thanks for those Q&A, I had been dilligently hunting the Q&A until the last week, and in looking through the Q&A I figured it would be in Section 8 Fabrication Schedule (since thats what seems to deal with the fabrication period after ship). But it still seems fuzzy:
So if we disassemble them, but the vendor wouldnt take them back as "new", the control modules do count towards the 40lbs... It still seems fuzzy, and doesnt fit with the FABRICATED definition that I pulled out... here are the rules that I originally based my thought on:

I guess I see from Bills blog that they were intending the control system to be part of the weight, but I was going by this part of the definition:
To me, the cRio hasnt been altered, built, cast, constructed, created, cut, heat treated, machined, manufactured, modified, painted, produced, surface coated or conjured into its final form by our team... so it seems to be a COTS item... Plus if a team buys a second controller, leaves it in its box, and brings that to competition, its considered a COTS item, isnt it??

I guess I thought this 40lbs was simple until I really read/reread it and saw those Q&A posts... I guess at any rate, our cRio weighs 3.12lbs, and the lexan I held back weighs about 2.5lbs, so we have 36.38lbs to go if all signs are pointing at the cRio being included.

And Joey, I totally agree... the wheels are definitely not good enough for a vendor to resell after a team has used them, and if the disassembled wheels, bearings, etc are COTS, then why wouldnt the cRio be?

I posted questions about the cRio in the Q&A, hopefully we get a speedy response... :)

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

The GDC has clarified a bit...I think. While I think this individual response is fairly clear, it definitely contradicts some of the other Q&A posts on this topic.

http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread.php?t=12033

So, I looks like any KOP or COTS item in "out of the box" condition are the only things not counted. This "out of the box" condition is new to me, as Fabricated to me is different than wear and specifying "out of the box" to me excludes both fabrication and wear.

The Good: From this post I would include the cRio as not included as long as you bring it in it’s out of the box form. (Nothing else attached)

The Bad: Nothing is all that bad. We get to bring in 40lbs of stuff made at any time.

The Ugly: No matter when you wired them, any motor with leads/connectors that you bring to the event is counted toward your 40lbs. I know that some teams would normally bring a lot of spare motors. They must understand that this now counts toward their 40lbs.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

The way I see the response is that you would be allowed to bring in a bunch of motors as long as they do not have connectors or anything attached to them....am i reading this incorrectly?

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

It looks to me that if you leave the motors as they were when you recieved them from the supplier, that is, you don't cut/strip/connect the wires or solder to the terminals, and you don't put anything on or make any modifications to the shaft, or add or change any mountings, or anything else, then you can bring as many as you want.

To be safe, you might as well just leave all your replacement parts in the boxes they were shipped in, and don't open the boxes. Getting them prepped will give your scouts something to do on Thursday.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

I admit it, I'm the least technical person in the room. My usual role is to try to point the way to where to find the information and to translate enough so someone like me can start to understand what the questions are.

But what has me confused is why all this confusion, clarification and debate is going on as recently as today. Those crates are gone. It's a done deal. So some decisions have already been made, intentionally, or unintentionally, about a rule that it appears is still trying to be explained.

I get heartburn when veteran mentors whom I respect are still trying to figure out what the rules are.

And the regional organizers are still awaiting the official marching orders on exactly how and whom is supposed to monitor <R36> once the teams enter the venue. Or not.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

You are correct. The first half of my statement says leads/connectors. The last sentence probably should start with "If those motors have connectors on them".

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

I think that one simple statement is just as, or maybe even more important & slightly disturbing than debating what is actually included in the 40lbs.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

We put the whole robot in the crate, so we don't have to worry about it. And we don't have to worry about putting the robot back together, and getting new code to work, etc.

It's those upgrade ideas we started having Monday night that are worrying me

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

Update: Apparently the FTA's have received some guidance to pass on locally. I am looking forward to learning from the actual experiences of the Week 1 regionals.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

Heh, we'll be apart of that week 1 learning process :ahh:

We're taking our 16-lb electronics board, some spare electronics (4lbs), our shooter (9 lbs), some lexan covers (4 lbs). The rest will be used mainly for accessories rookies should find useful, including #35 chain, 180-lb programmers, 20 lbs worth of code and firmware updates, spare bumper materials, etc.

We planned ahead and sent all of our wired spare motors, mounts, and transmissions (etc) in the crate.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

We're withholding our Crab Modules. We're going to set them up on a kit chassis to do some more traction control work, as well as other various work bits.

Oh, also our shooter. Should be fun times.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

Jenny,

Not half as much heartburn as the veteran mentors who hope they did the right thing! ;)

Mike

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

Now Im confused:
http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread.php?t=12029

So batteries (even with soldered, crimped, attached, etc electrical leads on them) are considered COTS/Non-Fabricated, but spare motors with soldered wires (often used to help the poor rookie team who didnt know they could burn out a motor) are FABRICATED??

http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread.php?t=12033

It seems to me (like Eric O'Brien stated) that "fabricated" is now being much more loosely interpreted than I expected... I didnt think that scratching the cover of a motor, or using sharpie on it would make it a fabricated item...

And then changing the pinion gear does not make it a Fabricated Item??
http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread.php?t=11950

I get the intent of this rule, but I worry about how to enforce it and what it means for those teams who always used to run over to other teams to grab spare material. We always used to bring a box of random raw material to share with teams or use ourselves to the regional, but now Im scared that if we do and it is not in pristine "ordered from the factory" condition, that they will count it towards our withholding weight.

Maybe we could petition FIRST/the regionals to let us contribute to a "spares" bucket when we walk in the door and make a pile of extra parts that any teams could use as needed, even if they are "Fabricated" per FIRST's terms.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

cRio board which we made modular for easy removal.
Camera system for further testing on a second robot,
Drivers station.
Some Lexan panels so they can be lettered and logos applied.
Spare wheels.
Everything else is COTS.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

Kim -
You need to read each question/answer carefully and take care to not insert assumptions about information that is not there.
The referenced question asked specifically about spare batteries. It did not say anything about batteries plus leads plus connectors. There is no contradiction here (and before anyone starts yelling "hey, all batteries are used with leads and connectors, so of course that was implied!" remember that all batteries should be shipped without the leads/connectors installed; so the answer does not make any assumptions about what was implied - only what was asked).

Again, be careful to read the question/answer carefully. It discussed both a potential change to a motor, and the legality of a COTS transmission. Don't confuse the two. I don't see any place in the answer that indicates a motor with a changed pinion would not be considered a fabricated item.

-dave


.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

The FP 9015 motor with the pinion for the AM Planetary is available as a COTS item:

http://www.andymark.biz/am-0316.html

On a side note: for being told not to lawyer the rules, there seems to be a lot of lawyering going on by the GDC. When you have to read "very carefully" what EXACTLY is asked and what EXACTLY is answered and there is still confusion among many veteran teams then something is wrong with the set up. There has to be an easier way to explain things - I don't believe that most of these teams are trying to "break", "bend", "lawyer", or "get around" any of these rules; we're just trying to figure out what the heck they mean. That being said, near as I can wrap my brain around the rules, I believe we are within the bumper rules and the 40 lb withholding allowance.

Just my $0.02. Here's to hoping the game is as fun as it appears it will be. Despite these comlications I am looking forward to the game.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

Did you see the one where an assembled Toughbox would not be a fabricated item? That one is still making my head spin.

http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread.php?t=11854

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

Dave,

If you are stating that the correct interpretation to the battery question is that the battery is without leads, you imply that a battery with leads is different and therefore does count toward the 40 lbs.

Yes, it is true that a shipped battery does not have leads on it, however, a shipped battery means nothing to this discussion about what is being carried into the event. I can't remember my team ever bringing in a battery without leads on it.

I would assume that the GDC does not intend for batteries with leads to count toward a teams 40lbs of stuff, however, most of my assumptions this year have been proven wrong in the Q&A. I guess I will have to wait and see on this one.

-Eric

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

I guess you could ask on the Q&A....do batteries with leads and connectors attached count as part of the 40 pound witholding?

and the answer will determine how much more electrical tape we need....

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

I think Dave's answer on page 3 pretty much sums it up. If you modify the component in ANY way, it's considered a fabricated part and counts in the 40 lb. limit.

So, hopefully everyone saved those 2007 and 2008 battery boxes and shipped the 2009 batteries in the crate.

The students will be busy attaching Anderson cables on Thursday, that's for sure. I'm sure glad we stuck with the FP motor configuration in the KOP.

Do they consider sharpie marks as a modification? What about the recommended change to the charger to add the Anderson connector? That sounds like it too is included in the 40 Lbs.

Right now, our withholding allowance is about 3 lbs.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

Ummmm, not unless you plan on putting it on your robot :eek:

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

We're holding on to our control board and driver station. We had some issues at this weekends scrimmage, all programming, mostly problems with watchdog. Everything else is pretty simple and doesn't need fixing

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

Not to be stubborn, but everyone keeps talking about the intent of the rule, and not to lawyer them... I wish the GDC could just be clear and answer questions as the TEAMS intend them. Instead of "mentoring" and "helping" the teams, they are either being deliberately vague, or just trying to keep themselves from being lawyered, and I fear that this is going to terribly confuse a lot of teams... or already has... And many of us have already posted the questions, so without answers and regionals coming up fast, we are just conjecturing as best we can. The GDC has chastised for submitting the same question over and over again before, but I have to believe that many teams right now are asking the exact same questions. It would help to at least be able to see the questions that are "in queue"...

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

The GDC has spoken and batteries with assembled connectors attached must be included as part of the Withholding Allowance.

http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread.php?t=12068

[rant]
I'm just going to come out and say it, I think this is ridiculous. I understand the need to establish a firm definition of what is COTS and what isn't for the purposes of this rule, but requiring teams to rewire all of their batteries at the event seems rather pointless to me. I can say for certain that I am done with this whole "Try to understand the reasoning behind a rule" garbage as there have been many cases this year where my best understanding of the reasoning wasn't even on the same planet as the GDC's.

My team is small and now one or more of our members will have to spend the beginning of their day on Thursday connecting lugs and covering terminals in electrical tape. Does this help even the playing field? If so between us and who exactly?

I am now beginning to wonder if we need to forfeit any awards/matches from previous years as in both '07 and '08 we brought assembled batteries to the competition by hand. We brought at least 2 batteries to each event which would be in violation of the 25 lb. limit specified by <R41> of the 2008 Competition Manual and <R31> of the 2007 Competition Manual. I guess it's time to figure out where to send these trophies back to :rolleyes:

I have seen many veteran teams offering assistance to others (both rookie and veteran) by lending them batteries during eliminations. I sincerely hope that this ruling does not cause a single battery to be left behind because of the hassle introduced.
[/rant]

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

This is the most ridiculous rule I have seen in my 9 years of FIRST robotics.

For the last 9 years I could walk into the event carrying 10 batteries with leads attached and nobody cared. Now this year suddenly this is different and we need to cut all our heat shrink off our terminated batteries, remove the leads, weigh them as part of our 40 lb witholding allowance, and then spend 30 minutes and $10 of heat shrink on Thursday morning in the pits to re-terminate our batteries?

I fail to see any universe in which this makes sense. It's a complete and total waste of time for a rule which is basically unenforceable anyways. How am I supposed to explain to my kids that they can't practice until they re-terminate all their batteries (unless we ship all our batteries event to event...which means we can't practice, and costs a ton of money).

Now we're all screwed anyways, as the crates are already gone and there's no way to even comply with the rules without de-terminating all our batteries (Let's not even mention the fact that based on the GDC's response to use the "would I want to return this item and get my money back if I bought it and it looked used" test, our batteries would not be COTS even with the leads removed).

There's really no way that teams are gaining a competitive advantage by coming in with pre-terminated batteries. This ruling is absolutely baffling to me.

Give me the old rulebook back with 100 more rules any day. At least you could understand them without a law degree.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

I'm not fond of the forced guessing games.

Why do we have to ask for clarification for the most basic things, it took a lot of pondering and discussion before anyone even realized batteries might fall into this category, and then it was QnA'd and determined to be illegal.

It makes me never want to QnA anything, and just go with Plausible deniability. If this were never brought up and never QnA'd would we have been stopped carrying batteries in? Was this already in documentation/training for volunteers? If so, why were teams never informed? If more explicit rules aren't going to be enforced unless someone asks about them, why even have the QnA system? It seems nothing is illegal until you ask about it.

Why does the GDC seem to try to be coy? If their intent had been from the beginning to do this, why not tell us? Why weren't we informed day one what covering a corner with bumpers meant, as it was clearly ambiguous? Why are most QnA's answered in the most noncommittal way possible? Dave, why do you publicly comment on discussion on QnA's warning how they "might" be interpreted, then say that it's of course non-official as it's not a QnA. Why not just say that in the QnA?

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

Yeah, I'm getting relatively infuriated at the sheer number of stupid rulings this year. This one moreso than most others, but for years of being chastised not to "lawyer" the rules, and just go on the intent, it seems to me the GDC has gotten very lawyerish this year, and when someone brings up a question about things teams have been doing since basically 1992, why are they suddenly illegal when they clearly DONT give ANY competitive advantage.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

I think its fairly safe to say that this is probably one of the most ridiculous rules FIRST has come up with...ever.

It looks like everyones got something to add to their list for thursday morning :rolleyes:

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

Ha, it's a good thing we didn't use the high-voltage soldering station where I work to solder the leads to the batteries. :rolleyes:

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

More importantly, I hope FIRST sends out an email blast ASAP. While it's irritating to take off our connectors, it will be 10,000x more irritating to watch all the teams who don't keep up on the Q&A walk in with fully assembled batteries and not even get spoken to... :mad:

An email blast will also serve to increase the number of complaints FIRST will receive for an absolutely pointless and potentially robot crippling ruling. I think they're trying to be consistent, but I'd rather them be realistic.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

I'm pretty sure they'll all get spoken to. What will be a pain to watch is when teams try to disassemble their battery connections in the lobby or on the sidewalk of a venue. Good luck if it's raining outside, or if it's cold... I 2nd the email blast about it.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

I can't help but wonder if someone answering these Q & A's gives out a really long hard evil laugh everytime an answer is posted because they are having so much fun messing with our brains. There always has to be a rule that spoils the season. They are lawyering, not us.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

I just learned that we dodged a bullet by putting the majority of our batteries in the crate right before it shipped off, so we'll be available to help other teams with their batteries in DC. Come grab someone in a purple shirt if you need an extra hand Thursday morning.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

Jesse, have any of these batteries had leads attached since before kickoff? If so they would have to be taken apart and reassembled to comply with <R27> as they would be a Fabricated item created before kickoff.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

ooopps







stupid wrong thread.......

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

This is the part that really grinds my gears. Not to dig on my childhood hero Dave, but every time I read something like "the answer does not make any assumptions about what was implied", I hear a voice in my head going "HAHA GOTCHA!", and each occurrence is more infuriating than the last.

Instead of simply saying "Additional batteries do not need to be considered part of the WITHHOLDING ALLOWANCE", why not add "unless your batteries have been assembled into a MECHANISM"? It's not like this is an obscure scenario... when it's obvious that the blanket "yes" answer is incorrect for the device that many teams would consider to be a "battery", it's insane for the GDC to withhold the complete answer until somebody strings together a more precise set of words. It's a huge hassle for askers and answerers alike. If that's the rule, then just lay it on the table. Let's not play games.

(Hm, maybe I should see a doctor about those voices...)

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

i've noticed the GDC for many years tends to give very non-committal answers, but its been especially bad this year. They always say "we can't make comments on individual robot designs" well, make a comment. Say something like "for this to be legal, you would have to..." or what have you. I'm sick and tired of the guessing game they've led us on. Is this the bumper rule? no. is this? no. why not just say "no. THIS is the bumper rule". Admittedly, there are Q&A askers out there who just refuse to ASSUME some things about the way the rules are written and go based on INTENT. Those people ask so many questions about every permutation of interpretations of the rules and force the GDC into a corner, but the GDC needs to say No, you're being silly. Stop asking questions that you should automatically know the answer to. and when they get backed into a corner like that (say, with this battery issue) they need to say Oh, well, the way the rules are written is NOT what we intended, so here's a modification that FIXES the rule to be the way we intended it.

EDIT: I've been around FIRST since 2003, and every year, they tell us to stop lawyering the rules and go based on intent, and every year the problem seems to get worse and worse.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

we are actually bringing -6 pounds of stuff and putting it all on the bot when we get to ct regional.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

To look at this from a different perspective, stringing together more precise sets of words is a very important skill. Many of the complaints with the manual, Q&A, etc. have to do with this very thing - and the GDC could be providing an opportunity for team members to practice this skill.

I do understand the frustrations occurring right now and am not trying to be glib or flippant.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

I've seen tons of extremely clear Q&A questions that the GDC totally blows off and gives some noncommittal answer to because it wasn't worded in exactly the right way or something.

It's like it's a big game where the GDC members are sitting in a room laughing with each other about how clever they are for giving cutesy little responses that are totally useless

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

Good point. At first when I saw this I said 'uh oh'. In reality, I believe any of the batteries that were used on our 2008 bot (there were 4) had to be re-oriented to work with our 2009 bot. We swapped from parallel connectors to angled connectors, and by doing so probably just saved ourselves some time in the pits. Those plus the 2009 batteries should suffice.

There are a couple of others that I don't know if we did or not, but I don't know if they were put in the crate -- they're our 'test' batteries from our 2006 season, used for things like charging pneumatics, etc. Therefore they shouldn't fall under the game manual's jurisdiction.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

Communication is indeed an important skill, so much so that FIRST gives out a very prestigious award to celebrate it. We can act like this is a great exercise in learning to be more like Dr. Flowers, or in learning the real world engineering difficulties that result from differing imaginations between contractor and contractee. However, regardless of how the optimistic among us frame it, at the end of the day these problems are creating a lot of very unhappy customers for FIRST, and addressing them properly is critical to sustaining the program.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

Communication is very important. Perhaps the organization that gives us such an award should practice it themselves by letting us know about such absurd rules at the beginning of the season and not after ship. :]

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

The problem is that someone asked a question of the GDC which pointed out how our batteries as we've brought them to the competitions for years are NOT COTS. The GDC then responded based on that knowledge that we can't do it that way based on the way the rules are written. The problems with the rules only make themselves known when people point them out. The thing that has caused all this outrage, is that instead of FIXING the rule to match what the INTENT was, by excluding batteries with anderson connectors attached (like in the battery + its half of connector is NOT part of robot weight rule), from the COTS/Withholding business, the GDC has decided to just respond based on this as is. They could have responded to the effect of: "Oh, you're right, the rules as written DO make that illegal, however, that was not our intent, and as such, we will be releasing a team update in the coming (hours/days/decades) that fixes this, so that the letter of the rule more closely matches our intent." But they didnt.

EDIT: Note: I'm not saying I don't think they will release an update fixing this, but they shouldn't have made a Q&A response which says "Yes, this is Illegal", knowing full well that they're going to release an update that fixes it.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

They technically did let us know about this at the beginning of the season. The wording of the rule hasn't changed in 3 years, actually. So theoretically we've all knowingly broken the rules about it for two years now. It's not the GDC's fault that niether the teams, GDC, or inspectors thought to put everything together into this specific scenario with a question and this specific ruling. The GDC ruled correctly, and stayed within the realm of what the Q&A is for ... so dear God let's hope for an update out later today, as those are the only things that can change a rule rather than interpret it.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

The update should, to keep status quo, say that batteries with leads are exempt. Like that'll happen.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

And this is precisely the reason I most likely will not continue in FIRST if the manual continues this way. After Kickoff next season is when my team will be deciding if we switch to another competition or stay here.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

If you look really closely, the train on the left has a bunch of team numbers on it and the one on the right has "GDC". What I'd really like to know is what color were the guy's pants at frame 0:34!

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

So, it looks like you have # options of taking your batteries

1. ship them in the crate with no leads on them
2. bring them to the competition
3. with leads on them, and count them as part of your 40lb
4. with leads detached, and the leads having ring terminals on them, counting as part of your 40lb
5. with leads detached, and unmodified leads, with neither counting as part of your 40 lb

So, unless you are counting them in your 40lb withholding allowance you must remove the leads.

kinda like the battery connector issue in 2004 (i think it was) crimped connectors were not allowed, you had to use the screw on type, lots of folks didn't like that rule, but it was the rule, and if you wanna play, you gotta follow them.

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

There's a huge difference though. In 2005 the rule you mention was actually in writing from the moment the game manual was released. It was a rule nobody liked, but it was a rule the entire time and everybody knew about it (unlike this year).

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

From a legal standpoint, the principle of estopple and the fact that the rule hasn't changed in three years, and that during those three years battery/connectors were not considered fabricated items (after all, how many teams used last year's batteries attached to last year's cables? Quite illegal if batteries+cables are fabricated items) does indicate that unless the rules WERE changed that past practices and interpretations should be carried out.

I would be pleased, however, if rather than arguing the point that batteries + cables should be considered COTS from a legal standpoint, we could settle this from an engineering and common sense standpoint by asking, "What is the point of making teams assemble their batteries on Thursday morning and/or disallowing battery cables assembled in previous years?"

The nice thing is that the legal, engineering, and logical common sense arguments all suggest that battery and cable assemblies should be COTS.

Jason

Re: What's going in your Withholding Allowance?
 

Thanks to the GDC for listening to and addressing this issue. Connected batteries no longer count as part of the Withholding Allowance per Team Update 15