[Brandon Holley]

Originally Posted by scca229

*Jon above said this much better, but still leaving mine as I feel better now.*


I'm guessing that this won't be popular, but since I'm going to have to deal with this crap in weeks 5 & 6 (maybe 4), and watching several threads all whining about the same thing, I'm going to spill it.

/being rant

I'm still trying to wrap my head around what the issue really is here. This is sounding a whole lot like my 11-year-old and 7-year-old having a "discussion". Frankly it is amazing to me that it is the "adults" that are the vocal ones here, but I will assume that teams only want one public voice and not a whole slew.

As far as I am aware, that 60 sec "guideline" has been in the Game Manual since Kickoff. It was not a surprise addition 5 weeks into Build Season that should suddenly make a team have to redesign their entire robot because their setup takes 2 minutes and they CHOSE to ignore it. In my OPINION (was that plain enough?), a HUGE part of the Engineering Challenge for this game with the very relaxed on-field dimensions was this exact thing.

Did the Mentors and Engineers complaining REALLY think that it wouldn't be watched during the competition? If so, then why in the heck would you think the GDC would even put that blue box there in the unarguably slimmed down manual for this year? That blue box gives examples of things that can cause a team to be called for a G10. Section F says specifically, "prolonged assembly/disassembly of a ROBOT to transform is from its TRANSPORT CONFIGURATION," and a specified guideline for that assembly/disassembly says, "ROBOTS should be configurable in less than sixty (60) seconds." Yes, the 60 seconds was not in the white section, but it should give you pause for thought that they took the time to put it in there at all and maybe think, "Ya know, we ought to design to setup in less than 60 seconds."

THIS ISN'T HARD. If your team did not follow the guideline and just built a bot with the thought of, "They aren't going to enforce it anyway," then figure out a way now. Do the Engineers complaining completely ignore any guidelines in documentation in their particular fields like many want to do here?

Bringing up, "But we paid money to ignore the rules," also doesn't really fly since this was not a post-kickoff rule.

/end rant

Hey Nate-

There is a term in conflict resolution called "Frames" that I feel fits here. You are framing some pretty large assumptions that the reason we are complaining is because we never thought this would actually be enforced. There are a lot of pretty interesting assumptions you are making. I actually find it a bit humorous to insinuate that this cast of characters overlooked ANYTHING in the rule book...

Quite honestly you're entire post is insinuating that because we're being vocal (and we're adults) we must be trying to skirt the rules to gain an advantage.

Let me frame some things for you: my team never leaves transport configuration, we built to always fit inside of the transport config box.

I am being vocal about this issue because if I have a firm understanding of what to expect and how the rules will be enforced, I can ensure my team knows what to look for (for ourselves, our partners and our opponents). This in my opinion is what good coaches do, regardless of sport or activity.

I'm also trying to make FRC a better place where we do not have instances of ambiguous rule interpretation governing team experience.


-Brando