As I haven't posted much this year, I'll make this my long post for the season.
Some thoughts and opinions on this thread:
While a few people are clearly very worked up over this loading zone rules, I think they will be pleasantly surprised that it does not become the big train wreck/debate they fear. Those who have a problem with the rules have some very good and valid points - every year there are some rules which teams interpret differently and which FIRST clarifies. Every year teams ask (beg) FIRST to
#1 try to have everything perfect when unveiled at the kickoff
#2 even though they try hard, if something isn't perfect and is found to be unclear - PLEASE clarify it early and only make any rule changes if it's absolutely necessary
So while people can discuss and debate how the rule "could" be different or better, here are a couple aspects of the rules all teams should be preparing for:
For a robot to interact with and retrieve a tetra from a loading zone without incurring a penalty, it must:
A) Be TOUCHING (not new, this has been the case for 46 days now and before anyone started building a robot) the loading zone triangle
B) Be clearly and visibly touching the loading zone triangle
For those who are taking notes of Law & Order reruns while preparing to argue that their robot is "over" the loading zone with refs at events - save yourself and your team a lot of time. The robot needs to "touch" the zone.
I do hold a different opinion than those who feel they would argue less with referees if they just had to be in the three dimensional place of the triangle instead of actually touching it. Take the baseball analogy - if a runner going from second to home only had to pass OVER third base and not touch it, both coaches would be sprinting out of the dugout on almost every play to argue with the umpire that the player was or wasn't over the corner tip of the base. However, in baseball it is the player’s responsibility to clearly touch the base to be safe. They can touch the center of the base, the side of the base, or just the little bity tip of the base - but they do have to touch it. If the umpire sees the base touched, safe - if he doesn't, out. It’s that simple and leads to very few arguments. FIRST refs will be much more comfortable with their judgment that they visibly saw part of the robot touching than the would be with their judgment that a part of a robot may or may not have been over an inch or two of the tip of the loading zone triangle - especially since they aren't hovering over the interaction looking down from above.
For those who feel teams are going to argue with refs that part of their robot is actually touching the triangle after the ref says it isn't. I offer this suggestion to solve any potential problem:
1. Find an unbiased stranger with no affiliation to your team (we all know almost all in FIRST are unable to consider an issue 100% objectively and with an open mind once you've taken a stance and your robot can be impacted by it in any way).
2. Ask that stranger to stand about 4-8 feet away from the loading zone triangle, about where a ref would be standing. (Forgot about the lawyers: make sure the stranger is standing up, don't ask them to lay on the carpet on their stomach)
3. Have your students drive your robot onto the loading zone triangle to the typical position/distance from the field border that your robot will be to get a tetra (2 inches over the tip of the triangle, or 2 feet into the triangle, whatever your team plans to do).
4. Ask the stranger this question: "Is that robot physically touching the triangle, not just over it?”
5. If they say, without having to squint or contort their body in any way "yeah, right there - that part of the robot is touching the triangle, it's pretty easy to see". Then hooray, you're probably good to go. Go have fun and don't worry about # 6.
6. If the stranger says "no", "I don't think so", or "at least not in a place I can see" - then you're not good to go and need to address the problem, then go have fun.
It's that simple - no need to argue with the refs at all, it's not their problem. If your first instinct is to tell the stranger (or ref) that "you're wrong, it is actually touching, it's just that the part that touches is inside the robot frame and your view is partially covered by X (insert whatever part name you want here - battery, motor, electronics, etc.)" then you are not clearly and visibly touching the triangle and should revisit # 6.
FIRST obviously took this into account when they clarified the touching rule by allowing virtually anything to be touching. Those who feel this is too easy, too simplistic, doesn't require complex engineering - you're probably right, and I'm sure most agree with you - but that's not the issue. FIRST chose not to require teams to use solutions which might require them to use lots of weight or drastically change their designs to meet the touching requirement and provided teams the option of finding a hopefully easy and low resource/cost solution if they so wish. If it's that easy and simplistic to just add some feelers, wire ties, whatever it may be as some have mentioned - then it shouldn't be a heavy burden on teams to do so. All they have to do is make sure they clearly touch the triangle so the ref can visibly see it.
Again, I'm not disagreeing with anyone that with hindsight the loading zone aspect of the game could be done a little better (maybe a different/bigger shape, rules worded a little more clear, etc.). There will be a few instances like this in every game every year. Luckily, these instances have become much fewer and less controversial the past two years.
What I do disagree with is the thought that this is a train wreck about to happen, that the sky is falling, and so on. I think back to the ball corral and goaltending rules last year. People should remember that many posted on here that those rules could ruin the game, that most matches would be decided by penalties and have zero scores, and so on. What happened is that there were a lot of penalties for the ball corral issue in week 1 and on Friday morning of some events. Then the teams adjusted, realized what the drivers and human players needed to do to avoid the penalties, and there were very few and many times no penalties on Saturdays and during the playoffs. I predict this is what will happen this year, teams will realize "wow - we (or they) got a 30 point penalty (ouch) for hitting the a robot while it was in the loading zone. We don't want that to happen again, let's not drive anywhere close to the loading zones of the other alliances whenever they have a robot in that area". I predict most teams will never get penalized for that more than once - if they do, then they really can't blame anyone else, it's there choice to be taking that risk. If some teams get 10 pt penalties for not clearly touching the loading zone, I predict they will address it, fix it, and will not get further penalties.
I think some underestimate our teams, students, and mentors. Is the loading zone issue a nuisance for a number of teams, and does it really seem to bother a few people in particular? Yes, that's clear. But a window bothers a bird in a house also - the difference is that the bird flies into the same window repeatedly and really gets a headache, while the FIRST team member recognizes the window is there, wishes it wasn't, probably curses the people who placed the window there in the first place, and then designs something to prevent them from making the same mistake again so that the window is no longer something they need to waste their time or energy complaining about.
If this is the biggest potential train wreck we experience in the 2005 game, then I think things are looking pretty good. Doesn't mean other issues or controversies won't come up, but so far this seems to be it.
Finally - based on what I sawand heard from many teams last weekend at various events, in my years in FIRST I've never seen such a high percentage of robots functioning so well at this point. I think this speaks volumes for the improved kit of parts and for all the hard work put in by the students and mentors. Congrats to everyone for 6 weeks of hard work, now go out and enjoy the fruits of your labor - good luck and have a blast at your upcoming events!
JM