Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul Copioli
Translation: If you have your bumper at the bottom of the bumper zone you get a maximum 3" to drop something below. If you have your bumper at the top of the bumper zone, then you get to extend 0" below your robot. This is a pretty big blow to some very good balancing strategies. First it was the no suction cups .. now this. FIRST 2 - Innovative Teams 0.
|
It's a bit worse than that. FIRST has been terrible with defining the circumstances under which the bumper rules apply, given various field obstacles.
Their test of "plac[ing it] flat on the floor" doesn't even guarantee a unique result for every situation. You can have a robot that sits stably on the ground in two (or more) positions. Which of them is the right one? (And for that matter, does "flat" necessarily imply stability?)
Perhaps a reasonable officiating practice would be to choose from the set of stable positions the one that is most lenient toward the team. (You can't enforce all possible positions simultaneously, because then
every robot would be illegal.) But that leads to perverse possibilities as well. What if the most lenient position is upside-down (wheels in the air)? There's nothing in the rules/Q&A that would indicate that this position could be disregarded.
I hope we'll see robots with flat roofs about 2 in above the bumpers being allowed, because when they're flat on the floor (in the wheels-up inverted position), their bumpers are in the correct zone. (Actually, what I really hope is that FIRST realizes that they've messed up a question of geometry
again, and suspends the relevant parts of the bumper requirements for robots in contact with the barrier and ramps. There's simply no value in enforcing this given the current state of the rules.)