Quote:
Originally Posted by Jon Stratis
As an example, the 8" bumper rule has been really rough this year, but what can we do other than repeat the rule in such a video? If someone didn't understand it while reading the rules during the season, they won't understand it while having the rule read to them.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto
Just an aside, the 8" bumper rule is, quite possibly, the most horribly communicated, critical-to-design rule in the entire game manual. Pains me to see so many rookies miss this mark.
I'm sure someone in this thread will just tell me to suggest a better a way to communicate it. Or if I care so much about it, to do it myself.
Alas, the internet.
-Mike
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In the PNW District we were blessed that Frank Merrick attended the DCMP. I took the opportunity to discuss the problems that we experienced with the 8" min bumper width rule this season. We came to an agreement that part of the problem is that the person writing the rules knows what they are trying to communicate and thus they are highly predisposed to read what they have written as clearly communicating the idea. That is because they know what they are trying to communicate and thus read into the words the intention behind the rules, that is present in their mind.
So I agree that reading the rules word for word will not do anything to make it clear to person who doesn't understand them by reading it themselves, because they don't have their own knowledge on what the intention was.
I do believe that a video that showed what defines a "side" and more importantly for this season a segment of a "side" if done properly, could go a long way to furthering the understanding of the rules by everyone.
A great example was with a team I saw at an event this season. Their mentor's argument was that there is no magic number that defines what creates a bumper that provides adequate protection. Their Robot had ~6" bumpers and they covered the full length of both frame segments on the front of their Robot. Extending the bumpers 2" in the direction of the center of the robot on both sides would have meant that they had an opening smaller than the diameter of the ball. So the conversation quickly turned to "making our bumpers wider will make our robot useless, so maybe we should just go home". (not the only time I heard that argument this season)
Once I explained to him that I agreed that their bumpers fully protected their robot, BUT that the 8" bumper width was created in part to make teams decide on the trade offs of their choice of robot size. Fact is that on the one hand you want as wide of an opening as possible to make it easier to acquire a ball without the need for perfect alignment, but on the other hand you want as narrow of a robot as possible to make fitting through the defense dividers and to fit on the batter/scale w/o interference from the batter dividers or an adjacent scaling robot, without perfect alignment, he accepted it. We then went to work creating a plan for a robot that was wider at the front that it was at the back to meet the rules.
Now to be frank I don't know for certain if that was the intention of the people who wrote the rules, but it did work to diffuse the situation and move from "you are making our robot worthless", to accepting my idea to increase the width of the front of the robot to be within the rules and still be able to intake a ball with their current opening and intake system.
So adding a little more explanation of the intention of the rules would also help to ensure that the reader fully understands what is required to be compliant with the rule.