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Unread 17-04-2014, 16:57
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Re: [FRC Blog] Orlando Incident

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jon Stratis View Post
Yes, that's the system I have. 2-3 inspectors at the inspection desk for when a team needs to ask for help/reinspection, 2-3 inspectors in the queue to check on teams as they come through, and the rest watching the field/field exit.

When a team breaks on the field or has other issues (disabled due to frame perimeter or bumpers, cRio or radio reboot, etc), and inspector follows them back to the pit to work with them - this ensures that the repair/fix is not only legal, but it gets inspected immediately. That inspector, since he is already in the pits, then goes to the inspection desk and relieves one of the inspectors there. This prevents an inspector from getting bored sitting at the desk all day (most of the inspectors I work with are pretty active and want to either be working with a team or watching a match, not twiddling their thumbs at the desk). That inspector then goes and relieves one of the guys in the queueing line. That way you don't have the same inspector looking at the robots the whole day - if an inspector misses something once, they're likely to miss it a second time. Changing out the inspectors helps to make sure stuff gets caught. From there, the inspector goes back to the field/field exit and starts the cycle all over again.

It's the best way I can come up with of catching issues, helping teams avoid issues while on the field, ensuring we pro-actively show up to inspect for teams who are likely to be doing something that needs an inspection, and being available for teams who ask for it.

But towards the point of Frank's blog post (and Allen's last post)... even with my method there's room for confusion and misunderstandings. A team could make it through all of that and still compete with something I would find blatantly illegal, and it would be difficult to track it back to the inspector that passed it, and even more difficult to ensure the inspector remembers passing it. Additional documentation can certainly help avoid situations like what happened in Orlando, so long as we don't go overboard and make that documentation a pain that no one wants to deal with. Doing it with the computerized system that was tested in MAR sounds like it could work out very nicely.
I like your system a lot. The thing I am proposing be changed about it is to make the "re-inspection" process an active rather than passive thing. Instead of inspectors walking around to see anything that looks different, they would ask each and every team, every time, "what did you change?" and then make judgement based on their answer + the robot appearance. Right now the rules as written mean that every single change to the robot (e.g. re-treading a wheel) could result in disqualification if not reinspected. Currently teams get by on common-sense interpretation of this rule, basic leniency, etc., but this is a huge opportunity for confusion and seemingly arbitrary disqualification. Rather than try and write a perfect rule set that allows some changes but not others, just having inspection checks become a normal pre-match thing would prevent this problem, or any other problem like this, from happening again. By seeing a team on the field you'll know an inspector has recently talked to the team.
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