Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe Johnson
I agree with a lot of the points that Paul C. makes.
My reason for starting this thread was to have a discussion around consistency of rules more than the details of this particular rule.
I also was poking FIRST a bit, yes, because, frankly, I am left scratching my head around the question of "what problem is FIRST solving by not providing clarity around this issue?" It is clear from the FRC Blog that they know there is a problem with consistent enforcement. It is also clear that the rule is deliberately vague. I assume that they are working behind the scenes to address this for Week 2 and beyond. So why are they not clearing this up publicly?
As I type right now, I believe I have a reasonable theory. FIRST does not want clarity. When a team is just not going to be able to compete under a strict limit, they want to be able to look the other way. BUT but but, they don't want to make this an official policy because A) if team gets ridiculous with respect to the transformation time, they want to be able to rein them in and
B) they don't want to upset folks who will no doubt say, "if I knew I had X extra seconds above and beyond 60 , I would have designed a completely different robot that would have played on Einstein. Guaranteed!" I don't know if this the really the reason for the lack of clarification but it does seem to explain things.
Dr. Joe J. |
I believe this is exactly what happened. I think this rule was only intended to prevent teams for planning on a long set up time, and arm referees with the ability to hurry up teams who consistently take extraordinary amounts of time. Not as a strict punitive wrist-slap without warning (which is what so distressed Frank and the community).
It's worth noting that what the GDC has to do every year is very difficult, and it's not surprising that they create ambiguity in order to lean on referees to account for edge cases. Unfortunately they are victims of their own success; in order to inspire students, they wanted FRC to be taken seriously as a competition, and as a serious competition, it has to live up to the matching standards and scrutiny of its competitors and fans. Especially considering the time, energy and money it requires.
Also the fact that they foster a community of engineering, out-of-the-box thinkers doesn't make it easier...