Quote:
Originally posted by Tom Schindler
Should we ban buying of skyway wheels - after all if they didnt make them why should teams be able to use them? no. Its called being creative - teams have to come up with a way to control the tape measure - that takes some design work. No team can just buy the tape measure, stick it on and have it work - there is definitely more to it than just that.
Tom
|
Tom read my mind. When teams realized that pnuematic wheels worked great for this years comp, many of them modified thier drive train. I don't call this cheating/illegal/"not in the spirit of FIRST"... I call this smart gameplay. If you build a gearbox that dies in every match and then redesign it (maybe using ideas seen from other teams) to not die, that's smart. They shouldn't be DQ'd or looked down upon because they modified thier original design.
When FIRST made the initial rulings on tape measures, many teams (including mine) were scared away from the idea. Those who kept with tape measures either didn't read the rules, or didn't care enough to be cautious. Now that the rules have been stated clearly, I think anyone who wants to design a tether using a legal tape measure realizes it may be smart gameplay for them.
Like Tom said, you can't just add a tape measure to your robot and tell it to extend. You still have to engineer/program/control the thing.
Please don't "blacklist" teams that make creative, strategic modifications to their robots....
thats not the spirit of FIRST.
...just my 2 cents...
Steve