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Originally Posted by UlTiMaTeP
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Originally Posted by TierraDelDiablo
I biggie that I've noticed was inconsistent inspection standards between regionals and championships. Here's why:
At FLR and GTR, our robot was weighed without backup battery and LED's. The inspection people specifically told us, as far as I know, to NOT include those two items. But at championships, our inspector told us the exact opposite, that everything had to be on the robot while being weighed except for the battery. Although that the added LED and backup battery didn't put us over the limit, it frustrated me to know that there was this much inconsistency.
Secondly, at both FLR and GTR, we were allowed to precharge our pneumatic cylinders with a non-kit, non-FIRST, air tank. No one at those two regionals told us not to do so and we even saw other teams doing the same thing. But when came to championships, we were told that we can only precharge with the pneumatic equipment already on the robot. We were told this after other teams complained about our having done so.
Our inspector told us that this might have came about because there were inexperienced inspectors at those regionals. That might explain the LED and backup battery issue, but how can any inspector miss our team taking a giant air tank to our robot and filling it with air?
I hope that we are not the only team that had problems with the inconsistency, if we are, then I guess the inspectors at regionals DID miss those things. If anyone knows differently, please correct me.
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There is NO section in the mannual that says you need to have the compressor on the robot to use pneumatics! |
As an inspector, I can attest to the fact that there were many confusing rules and demi-rules concerning pneumatics. In fact, with 639 at the GTR, I came very close to making the same call as the Championship inspector, right before a match--I went so far as to notify the referee on the field that I was going to cite you for it. I didn't do it, though, because I could only
firmly remember the requirement that the off-board compressor (if any) be the kit unit. <QA1672>, which spells all of it out more clearly, was a little shaky in my mind, because I couldn't see the justification for disallowing an off-board reservoir (assuming the two Clippards were on-board, and no dubiously legal arrangements such as pistons or tubing as a reservoir existed). In other words, you were lucky that I wasn't
absolutely sure of what to do about a system without a compressor, and similarly fortunate that I didn't want to burden you with something about which I wasn't quite sure. Furthermore, I suspect that the notion that you weren't doing any harm, nor gaining an unfair advantage might have crept in there.
Now as for some of the other pneumatics rules, of which I
was sure, I didn't like some of the rulings I had to make (pressure switches, coiled hoses and pistons come to mind). The pneumatics rules need fixing; maybe later I'll have a more comprehensive list.
As for 639's weigh in at GTR, it's possible that they were handled by one of the less-experienced inspectors; we had three experienced inspectors full-time, and several more first-time inspectors also working full-time.