M30?
 

We are working on a minibot this offseason and have the opportunity to print the frame and other components out of some sort of plastic with a rapid prototyping company. We could do polycarbonate, but it would take significantly longer and be significantly weaker than an M30 option they've been telling us about. Does any one know exactly what this stuff is, if we could make a case for it being remotely related to polycarbonate, whether we should care about the rules for offseason purposes, etc.? My guess is that it probably won't pass as PC.

Re: M30?
 

Here is a simple flowchart that can determine whether or not a material is valid for the minibot frame:

Is it on the approved material list -> Yes -> It is legal
|
v
No - > It isn't

Re: M30?
 

Thanks for answering my question. Guess what: polycarb is on the approved materials list. My question is whether M30 is a type of polycarb.

Re: M30?
 

Ok fine, http://www.tfcenergyinc.com/pdf/stratasys/ABSM30.pdf It is ABS according to that. Which, by my handy dandy flowchart, is not legal. You supplier should have been able to tell you that. Or a cursory google search should have turned up this information.

For the record, asking " whether we should care about the rules for offseason purposes" will always get you a sarcastic response. Either you always care about the rules or you shouldn't be competing. Of course, with definitions as arbitrary as "light switch" I can't blame you for trying...

Re: M30?
 

Was that sarcasm? Darn, I thought that was a pretty handy flowchart.

Re: M30?
 

I tentatively disagree with you on this topic. For example: the Kinect was explicitly illegal, but I still think it is an awesome off-season project. Even if it is still illegal next season, the students will gain some seriously cool experience.

This thread's particular potential rule violation is a little less vague, but it could still potentially have some validity. If it was a pure matter of availability and everyone involved knew the reason and the effects of the deviation, I believe it could be acceptable. If it was a matter of M30 being superior to PC, perhaps not.

Re: M30?
 

Being lenient on the rules for off season competitions depends from competition to competition. Some teams with shorted 775s competed with extra CIMs, for example. Ask your off-season if it's okay.

Re: M30?
 

Ditto. It's a quote of the exact flowchart FIRST has in their manual, lol. Generally speaking, the offseason events I've attended have been so low-key that I doubt anyone would have cared if a new material (or even illegal motors) were used. Since we don't have the sensor connections for the towers, the 'race' for the minibot is somewhat moot.

Personally, if your students will learn iterative design by building a new minibot and the rules of the offseason remove the 'race' from the minibot, I say go for it. Yet that's just my opinion; you should ask the offseason event coordinator if you go to an offseason competition tbh.

Re: M30?
 

Offseason competition and offseason projects are two different things. If the OP wanted to build a minibot for the heck of it and used M30. Or wanted to use it for evaluating the benefits of m30 over his other options (perhaps for inclusion in other parts of the robot) I would be completely supportive. However, to basically disregard a rule because it is the offseason is, in addition to cheating, rude to your opponents.

If the issue was availability then the OP needs to investigate other options that are in line with the rules.

Note, I responded that it was illegal because the rules say it is. My morals tell me that breaking the rules for a competitive advantage is wrong. As for why I claim the OP should have searched or asked his sponsor is because M30 is pretty generic and he could potentially add more information than what he provided.

Re: M30?
 

Which off-season are you guys competing in this fall? I've been talking with the organizers of a couple of them, and might be the lead robot inspector telling you your minibot is illegal :p But really, I think off-season competitions tend to be a little looser on the rules - mostly focused on safety and ensuring a fair level of competition among all teams present.

Personally, I think the minibot would be a great way to gain experience with the material and the company providing it, regardless if you can use it in an actual competition or not.

Now, if you go ahead and build it and bring it to an off-season I'm working at, I'll expect two things before considering allowing it:
- proof of safety. Provide me with spec's for M30 and polycarb, side by side, that show what the differences are, and be prepared to explain why those differences won't affect safety (primarily, I would be concerned about shattering - is your minibot going to break into a hundred pieces when it hits that top plate? If pieces do break off, are they going to be a danger to people working the field, like glass would be? You should be able to use the specs to prove that it's just as unlikely to happen with M30 as it is with polycarb). As an added bonus, bring some extra material and demonstrate how safe the material is.
- proof that it doesn't provide an unfair advantage. Specifically, if you had made it out of polycarb instead of M30, what would the difference be? Would you see a difference in weight for the minibot (since weight is the primary factor in determining acceleration, given the anticipated uses of this material)? If so, can you offset that by adding some small weights to "equalize" your advantage?

Note: If the competition adopts changes like those made for IRI this year with regards to minibot scoring, the second point might be much easier to make, as fast minibots doesn't provide nearly as much competitive advantage.

If you want to talk more about it, PM me. I'd be happy to help you get an "official" answer for any of the twin cities off-season events.

Re: M30?
 

We routinely enter multiple robots into offseason events, and for the sake of getting things done we often run illegal motors, too many motors, sometimes "illegal" wiring, wrong radios, missing Robot signal lights, out of size box, etc...

Never have these robots been better than our actual comp bot, and the illegal things we did provided no competitive advantage.

If an event were to try to enforce these rules on us, we simply wouldn't come back again. The point of offseason events (at least nears us) is for people to get some experience and have a good time, if it's not breaking gameplay rules and it's not a direct competitive advantage, go for it.

Obviously, events will vary, so check if your event is doing strict inspections to avoid potential issues.

Re: M30?
 

My thoughts on looser rules at offseasons: Assuming its not giving you an extreme competitive advantage, I see no problem with it. We ran with a CIM instead of 775s at IRI this year because we had so many issues with those motors. It provided no competitive advantage (ie: offered no different functionality than our original design), our elevator just went up and down consistently and provided us with some peace of mind knowing that issue was not going to flare up at an inopportune time.


As for the M30 minibot frame: The first thing I did when we started designing our minibot was try to track down a PC (polycarbonate) cartridge for my 3D printer at work. I found one, but it was considerably expensive. My next step was to try and track down a company that could print frames out in PC for free or at a considerable discount. I had some progress with one company but was unable to get the actual frames made.

I think its an awesome project, and I really do not see what the big deal would be regarding using one at an off-season event. Had you attended our off-season (the Beantown Blitz), we would allow it with no issues. Obviously make sure to check with whatever event you are going to first though. Post up your design and lets see what you've come up with!

-Brando

Re: M30?
 

While I don't think events should be incredibly stringent on the rules, I'm surprised that you think an event attempting to prevent teams from cheating is so offensive that you'd never return again.

Re: M30?
 

The only point I will touch on is how illegal is the wiring? Just wrong colors or too small wires? Everything else (aside from if you built a robot with 6 Cims and 4 FP and a handful of Globes) seems to be within what I would call the spirit of the rules. In fact, at a during season event I would make it my job to make those robots legal so they could compete (that is, in my opinion, part of inspector's jobs). The only reason I call out wiring specifically is the increased risk of fire/equipment damage.

As for the OP, this would provide a distinct advantage due to the stronger material. It would also, as eagle pointed out, be a potential safety risk due to the possibility of a spontaneously exploding minibot.

I suppose, as long as you clear it with people running your off seasons and ensure it is safe, running a minibot made out of a different material would be an option.

Re: M30?
 

Andrew, the differences aren't unsafe. We know enough about we're doing to make the distinction between what is somewhat trivial in the rules and what is necessary in a high powered electrical distribution system. For example, last year we ran two window motors off of one victor as we were short on speed controllers.

The California offseason events are generally low attended, and generally they aren't very competitive. So we make an effort to bring multiple robots to help increase the team count, increase the competitiveness of the event, and allow other teams/prerookies to use them. We gave our 3rd to a nonfunctional team at an event last year. If they make this more difficult to do, we'll just go to different events as what we're doing is far from cheating. Every one we've been too has been from from this though, they've all been great and it's never been an issue.

It's also a HUGE hassle getting and keeping three robots running, during the fall season, with 8 students or so at the event. We really do it more as a service to others than ourselves.