30 lbs allowance
 

Hello guys,

I've got a question.
How serious are they about the 30 lbs? Would they let you go with 35?
Please tell about your experience from the other regionals this year.

Thanks for responding

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

How serious are you about following the rules?

Jason

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

At Florida they weighed everything you brought in the door in terms of spare parts.

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

They are not going to weigh your withholding allowance (or at least we have never seen anyone getting spare parts weighed, even when we brought in a whole robot as withholding at 10K lakes last year (it was within allowance)). It is up to each team to stay within the withholding allowance weight on their own. That being said, if you bring in a whole robot, some people may look and wonder if that qualifies.

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

Well put. If it's a rule which everyone else is following, what makes you think that it should be any different for you?

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

No... most places do not weigh your 30 lbs... If you bring it in as raw material and assemble it there it only counts as the actual machined or altered parts... it is all very tricky... careful reading of the rules will allow you to maximize this to well beyond the assumed normal definition. Usually, they are aware that your team spent $4 - 5 thousand to register so they look for ways to bend over backwards to allow you to compete. I have seen "illegal" bumpers, illegal parts and illegal drive trains allowed to compete. In THIS year by the way, so as long as it is not blatant... and you do not gain an unfair advantage... you can compete. Oh they may try to be politically correct but 35 lbs.. 30 lbs... they have bigger fish to fry... and I wish they would.

Steve

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

We actually weren't planning on having more than 30 lbs but our cover turned out to be very very heavy.
We could take it apart again, which would make it to spare material, but that would be just stupid taking stuff apart and back together.

We do not gain any special advantage. We have the cover and the bumpers out, thats all.

So you think we should be fine with that?

Thanks again for answering!

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

What bigger fish are there to fry compared to a blatant disregard of the rules? I agree that the whole "Bumpers out of the bag" arguement is rediculous, but I see no reason that any team should push the limits knowingly.

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

We did in FL (week 2).

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

In my 3 years of being associated with FIRST I've never seen them do a weigh-in of spare parts at the Oregon or Seattle regionals.

It sounds like you are not going to be in compliance no matter how you cut it with your current plan. As noted the limit is on fabricated parts not COTS. So if you were bringing in an arm or claw for example as a fully assembled part the entire assembly would go to your 30lb limit. If it was carried in unassembled then the hardware, motors, cyls ect would be considered COTS items and not be limited while the parts that were machined, cut, and/or drilled to the final configuration that will go on the robot will be considered fabricated.

In your instance the parts that make up the cover are already cut/machined/drilled to their final configuration to go on the robot so the only thing you would save in weight would be the fasteners. Ditto for the bumpers.

So I suggest taking apart that cover, leave home the largest/heaviest parts and fabricate those on site in accordance with the rules.

If you have tool or person power limitations of getting it fabricated on-site look us up and we'll be glad to help in any way we can.

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

In Israel no one checked it,
my team had the same problem so we drilled holes in the parts to lose weight. (We had 3 pounds of holes)

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

Seeing as how you are from a young team, the simple answer is YOU will know! One of the beauties of this competition is that participants generally break their necks to stay inside the rules. To do that, they also make sure other teams perform the same way. It is one of the reasons we do inspections.
If you think you have no advantage, then you are mistaken. You have five more pounds of advantage over a team that planned and worked and put that extra five pounds in the box or bag when they shipped. They took the time in the build that you did not. Don't discount their time, use yours on the practice day to overcome what others have during the build season. You will feel better knowing that you competed under the exact same time limits as everyone else. If you do well, it will not seem like a hollow victory. If you do not, then you will feel like you did your best under the rules, and someone with a better (you fill in the blank) won.

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

Our withholding allowance was not weighed.

I would do everything you can to follow the rules.

If you are overweight, do keep in mind that COTS parts do not count. Detaching some motors and electronics might be all you need to make the allowance.

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

We have never had our withheld parts weighed upon entrance to any regional I've been to in the last few years, but it changes depending on the regional. (We've also never brought more than 10lbs or so in with us anyway.)

That being said, if your withheld parts appear to be close to the 30lb limit, someone may ask you to weigh them just to be sure, or another team may tell the Inspectors that your parts should be weighed...

Depending on your mechanism, you might be able to pull some COTS components off like Chris said, or if your mechanism has some relatively simple parts, you could bring in the raw materials and make those simple parts on site.

(Also, you might run into someone at your event that has read this thread and knows that your parts have a chance of weighing over 30lbs and they may recommend that the parts get weighed...)

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

Not to give the wrong impression. I highly recommend compliance with all the rules. We're weighing all our parts because we intend to comply with the rules as per the honor system and we will be under 30 lbs as per the rules. I'm very unimaginative when it comes to rules and bending them... I would have been a lousy lawyer. However it is sometimes unavoidable that a team may "push the limits" due to something like a robot damaged at a previous regional, But my perception of this rule... IN THE WAY IT IS ENFORCED is that it is more like speeding. At 30.1 mph in a 30mph zone, you are breaking the law and should expect a police officer to pull you over, chew you out, give you a ticket and tell you to never do that again...and possibly roll you with a nightstick for good measure. That doesn't happen. Maybe at 40... and I would hope that if someone brought in 40lbs or more of highly machined parts they would be asked to prove compliance. I guess Florida has the manpower to have someone stand by a scale and check everyone in but the volunteers at most regionals are very busy with robot inspections, moving supplies, directing teams and visitors, checking for safety glasses and appropriate shoes and the other thousand things it takes to make a regional go. As for me, PERSONALLY, if I were an official, I would just say yeah 35's ok just because I'm soft that way and I believe most people intend to follow the rules and if they are 5 lbs over bringing stuff in they are probably going to weigh in at 125lbs on the robot... and I KNOW that weight is dead serious.
<sigh> everybody takes these thing so seriously.

Steve

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

I absolutely agree with everything that has been said about staying within the rules, but a team that goes over a withholding limit by say 5lbs should not always be judged as trying to bend the rules. It was suggested that teams that go over are not planning their time wisely, however if you were in the North East like us time was certainly lost due to snow. We planned ahead but when the school is closed we cannot work and to suggest students meet elsewhere that day and drive is ridiculous because they closed schools, business, and gov't offices for a public safety issue.

So please try to follow the withholding as best as possible and for the spirit of finishing your robot not to add things.

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

Can you bring in 35 lbs of manufactured parts? Yes. You'll probably get away with it, too.

Should you bring in 35 lbs of manufactured parts? Absolutely, emphatically, NO. This is an extremely cut and dry rule, 30 lbs is 30 lbs. Please don't make the inspectors have to start checking this, as they already have way too much to do.

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

we should really follow he rules of the competition. it will be wrong to have more than 30 lbs, and yes you will have to rebuild your robot because they are very strict about it. you must have 30 lbs and nothing more.

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

How much does your word mean to you?
Can you or anyone tell that we took last year's gearboxes totally apart and rebuilt them so they would be legal? Who would know?

We would.

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

If dismantling the cover and putting it back together will get you in compliance, then do that. It is not "stupid." It is doing whatever it takes to build within the rules just like you did during your build season. This rule is no different than the 1000 other rules that you have followed, many of which can't be checked. Don't make all your other good work meaningless by bending this silly rule at the finish line. Its not worth it. If you have success at your regional, you don't want Jimminy Cricket spoiling it by whispering in your ear.

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

i think that they should bring whatever they need, it really shouldntbe a problem if they go over the limit but such a little amount . but if you do get checked and they see that your over good luck . But if i was you i would stick to the rule and keep it to 30 or under

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

I stand corrected... I didn't think this was a big deal. There seems to be a lot of passion about this. Perhaps we should put a scale out there and offer to help at the Dallas regional. Just an idea, Any thoughts?

Steve

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

I'm concerned and troubled with the number of responses in this thread that basically say you'll probably get away with it so it's OK. Nothing could be further from the truth, and this is a lesson for life, not just robotics. You will forever be confronted with choosing between right and wrong, or choosing what you think you can get away with. Which way you go defines what kind of person you are. Choose wisely.

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

A novel idea to earn some GP points at your event. Hold up a poster at the team entrance that says "WITHOLDING ALLOWANCE TROUBLE? WE CAN HELP." Offer to help teams figure out what they can keep, what they can't, and how to get within the rules. Offer your students to provide the manual labor to mismantle or re-fabricate parts when that is what is required.

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

Thanks for all the answers.

We will take a motor and some other little pieces of so that we are in the 30 lbs.

We do not want to bend the rules anyhow. We are serious about following the rules.
We did not plan on going over the 30, but like I said the cover turned out to be very heavy.

And by the way: We do not live in the north east, so our schools were not closed, but we are still not allowed to use the school shops.
So our robot is build in a living room without of any special shop tool and without of any mentors.
So also if we had the 5 lbs more I don't think that we would have any advantage. Other teams do more than we do, because they have good machines that we could just dream of.

Thanks for all your answers again!

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

At Bayou Regional, there was no concern for the 30 pounds. It seems you could have brought any part of the robot. No one seemed to care.

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

This is off topic, but I've seen this thought expressed in a number of threads recently.

Please don't think that a machine shop is the answer to all your problems. You don't need a lathe/CNC/laser cutter etc to build a winning robot. In 2006 (our second season), we built a robot that I'm sure many people would be tempted to smile at because of the build quality and the materials and construction techniques we used. The ball shooter was built from plywood, aluminum angle and door hinges. It was fabricated in a home basement workshop with a table saw, a chop saw, a drill press and a bunch of hand tools. We were fortunate enough to win the Granite State Regional, be an alliance captain in our division in Atlanta and win some off-season tournaments because our hand-built-held-together-with-wood-screws camera-guided plywood shooter could sink all 10 balls in autonomous. We still have our 2006 robot, and every now and then we look at it, smile at the way it was built, and enjoy some fine memories.

Have our design and construction skills and techniques improved since then? Definitely, and we now have sponsors who will machine things for us. Our robot is still made in the same basement workshop, though. We even have a bandsaw now :)

The important point though is that none of these things in themselves make a competitive robot. Working out a successful game strategy and then designing a reliable robot that you can build within your team's limitations so you can play to that strategy is a challenge that every single team faces. So please don't convince yourself that a "good" robot is out of your reach.

I hope this helps - I'm trying to encourage you, not make you feel bad.

Noel

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

30 pounds is easy to follow with the COTS rules.

My team over the last several years has worked with the COTS and witholding rules to allow major changes to our robots at events when we knew we got something wrong in the initial design.

In 2009 our frame had issues so we built a new one under that year's limit and carried it in to swap out every robot component and didn't miss a single practice match.

In 2010 we completely redesigned our kicker/possesor when the original exploded at scrimmage in our first match and we had to go back to the drawing board. This limited what we could do with our hanger so a good portion of that was made from raw material we carried in with us.

If you maximize use of COTS by purchasing gears and transmissions from AndyMark and Banebots or designing simple cuts of raw materialyou can do a lot with 30 lbs. By planning well and using these rules you can do a lot within the rules and have a clean conscience but it means you have to plan ahead.

Don't fight the rules, work with them and they are more helpful than you think.

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

We took some pieces off and apart now and we have ~27lbs. We will have to do at lot in Thursday but thats propably the same for every team.

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

No, read the definition of FABRICATED ITEM please.
Yes, we do.

A good measure of Integrity is what you do when nobody's watching.

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

You may not have noticed someone watching, but what if they were? A well known and respected First veteran once told me, "I know when something looks to be about 30 pounds so I will just hang out at the door if you need me." You are supposed to act as if "my" grandmother were watching. She was a little, old, Italian lady that knew the difference between right and wrong and could point it out without hesitation.

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

We will be at the Oregon Regional
Let us know how we can help you. We can help you fabricate whatever you need...we have the tools in the pit to do most everything.

Just come to the 1983 Pit (Skunkworks) and we can help!!!

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

FIRST really depends on the honor system to make sure rules are obeyed. There is no way every rule can be policed. There are so many ways you could cheat and nobody would be ever be able to tell.

So you start by breaking one little rule but where does it stop? Today you carry in five extra pounds but if you stay on that path will it be long before you're re-winding motors or clocking pressure gauges?

More importantly what are you teaching and what kind of behavior are you inspiring?

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

Thank you. I think we are good for now, but you never know what happens in the matches.
You can also always come to us, but I don't think that we got anything that you don't have.
But you could still come over to say hello ;-)

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

I just looked on the pit-map. You are right across the hall, so just next to us.
I'll deffinitly come over to say hello ;-)

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

wait, i have a question.

due to it binding, our lift has been eating fisher prices, so we have about 9 spares in case we cant work out where the problem is, and how to fix it quickly. do these fisher prices count towards the weight? and do they if we modify the gear on the end (we are concerned there will not be a press at competition, and we have a custom jig to put them on.

question 2

we fabricate parts that can be bought cots, because we can do it cheaper. are the fabricated parts part of the 30 lbs?

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

If you buy them with the gear, and bring them in unchanged, they do not count because they are not fabricated. If you buy them and modify the gears beforehand, they're fabricated. Fabricated parts count toward the withholding allowance weight.

Also, where did you find 9 legal Fisher-Price motors? (They're a new design this year, and have been relatively hard to buy until very recently. Old F-Ps are all illegal for 2011.)

Yes, they count towards the withholding allowance limit if you carry them into the event.

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

Got to Portland now.
They first asked us for the weight. We said it is close to the 30lbs we had to get it weighted in.

28.3 lbs^^
Good luck to everybody here in Portland!

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

Andy Mark now has correct 2011 FP motors for sale. They come with no pinion gear so you can count them as COTS... if you took one and took off the pinion gear you SHOULD count that as part of withholding technically because they have been modified.. These have no pinion gear so definitely COTS.

http://www.andymark.com/ProductDetai...ctCode=am-0821

They provide great service!!

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

At North Star they have been sticklers about weighing withholding allowances if they have any reason to believe its over (perhaps because of the number of posts here in the first day of the thread). One thing that really bit a lot of us is bumpers. We somehow totally overlooked that they weren't except from the 30 lbs (R33), so we didn't bag them with the robot. Several teams were rebuilding some if not all of their bumpers today.

Now don't get me wrong, I think it's very important that we all stay within the rules on this one. It is, after all, a rule. However, I am very strongly of the opinion that it needs to change. It seems to me that not exempting the bumpers severely penalizes teams going to bag and tag events. Unless they can fit them in their withholding allowance (unlikely, with 2 sets weighing 20-30 lbs), they must bag them, which is really not very convenient. You can only put one set on the robot at a time, which still complicates getting the bagged robot through doorways, and the loose bumpers need to be secured.

And it just makes sense that they shouldn't be included in the withholding allowance. They are not included in robot weight, and are an incredibly standard item by definition, let alone a required one. And they are hardly a functional part of a robot. What edge is attained by completing these after ship day (which we didn't do, but obviously that's what the rule is after).

I'm probably just feeling this way because we had to rebuild two of ours and witnessed first hand a team spending a good chunk of the day rebuilding most of theirs. Of course, this is because of a rules oversight by us, not because of the rule itself.

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

Ah, but they are. They are simply weighed separately for convenience. Teams who held out their bumpers last year were able to bring them in because of the 65 pound withholding allowance of last year only. This was due to the severe weather most of the country encountered that limited build time. This year we returned to the 30 pounds and that caught many teams who did not ship their bumpers last year.

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

Al,

The thing is 2175 did ship their bumpers last year, in their crate. This year the two Minneapolis regionals changed over to Bag-and-Tag. As Aren said, it is in the rules and the team is not blaming anyone but themselves over it (this is what happens when I move across the country, the robot gets better and the rules knowledge gets worse :rolleyes: ).

What I would like to see is FIRST allowing and encouraging bumpers to be bagged in a second, separate bag. It eliminates the difficulty of bagging them with the robot, but maintains the "done at ship date" aspect.

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

It's already allowed. The practice of using multiple bags was discussed here by a couple of teams.

Re: 30 lbs allowance
 

Allowed, but discouraged if I remember correctly.

I stand corrected, after looking around further, it looks like FIRST did encourage this during one of the conference calls.