Quote:
Originally Posted by dlavery
Apparently, you were not in Portland a few years ago. 
-dave |
Being a rookie, all I know is what I was told. This problem was with the arena electronics not being able to communicate with all of the robots. At first, some robots could not be shut down, then some of them in certain positions could not move at all.
If this is a common problem, I am surprised they don't bring backup systems. Rock stars don't stop concerts for a few hours to fiddle around with their sound systems.
Having huge penalties for easily made mistakes that give a team no advantage only serves to make the rules more important than the competition, the robots, and the spectators. If the purpose of FIRST is to promote engineering and technology like a sport, hoping to tap into the same excitement that people feel for sports, then the rules should be reasonable and not interfere with the game.
Even if your team didn't have a problem with the rule, the game is played in alliance with two other teams, and either one of them could knock out your entire score in less than ten seconds. I think the actual intent of the rule was to stop teams from going backwards to grab balls or score. It wasn't really the intent of the rule to obliterate a lot of good work just because a robot, while trying to race around a track, over-corrected coming out of a turn.
Also, you can tell spectators to watch for flags and mentally adjust the scores while they are watching, but there is a good reason why sports aren't played this way: people don't like it. People don't want to watch two race cars blast down the final stretch and see one outmuscle the other, only to have it decided five minutes later that actually both of those cars lost because of penalties that happened dozens of laps before, and really the third place car won.
Sure, make the rules any way you like: but if the purpose is to promote your cause and draw in the public, these rules don't work.