Quote:
Originally Posted by eagle33199
According to the GDC, such a thing may not be against the letter of the rules, but it is certainly against the spirit. So, if you're thinking of employing such a system, you should question what is more important for a FIRST team: following the letter and intent of the rules, or finding a sneaky way around them to perform better in the competition? I guess it really comes down to a question of what your teams goal is - to have the best performing robot, or to have the best performing team.
|
Yes, but you need to examine both of those GDC responses EXTREMELY carefully. This one
http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread.php?t=8460 you'll notice that the sensors are "legitimately" being used, and are within the letter AND intent of the rules. The GDC response to this specific scenario in the Q&A is:
Quote:
|
The Robocoach commands in both the Alpha and Beta examples satisfy the letter and intent of the rule. Both solutions involve reading sensors on the robot to perform the commanded functions.
|
That's right folks, you CAN achieve a "toggling" type action on your arm (as in the Q&A example), but you must do so by legitimately using sensors on your robot, and NOT just by software switching states based on IR remote keypresses, or by replicating those software states with a combination of hardware and sensors.
That's the difference between complying with the
intent of the rule or not, and it's an important distinction. It IS forcing teams to take a higher level of autonomy, even if it's trivial to some of us.
By my reading, it should be possible, to create a start/stop behaviour on a single RoboCoach command that is within the letter AND intent of the rules. Whether you comply with the intent of the rule depends critically on whether you use sensors to determine whether your robot is in motion or not.