Quote:
Originally Posted by Karthik
The changes to <S03> and <G27> have eliminated some fun strategies. However, these changes do make sense considering it's called an "Emergency Stop".
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Can you elaborate? I'm having trouble envisioning any strategic benefit to e-stopping your robot that couldn't be achieved through the control system.
That aside, I'm pretty strongly opposed to the changes to <S03> and <G27>. I have e-stopped our robot in the past when there wasn't an impending safety issue. Once, the battery in our Chicklet ran low, causing it to send out random commands, and causing the robot to start chewing itself up. In retrospect, unplugging all the controls would have had the same effect, but we couldn't make that diagnosis during the match, and it was a lot quicker to just disable the robot. In another case, the robot took a major impact, a 6-gauge wire came loose, and we lost power. Hitting the e-stop deactivated the hurricane light over our driver station, giving the other alliance a signal that they didn't need to run into us any more. These are not safety issues, but I feel that we're well within our rights to protect our robot as best we can when things go awry.
I fully agree with Chuck that a non-responsive robot is a potential safety issue, even if it isn't apparent to an outsider. Remember the 8.3V glitch from 2006? If you were watching the Operator Interface, you could tell that the robot was about to flip out. I believe that my drivers and I are the people most qualified to determine if our robot is potentially unsafe, and I really resent that now I'm going to hesitate before I e-stop, even if there's an absolute safety hazard, so I can think about whether the head ref will see it the same way I do. That's not safe.
If this rule stays on the books until the competition, I'll likely instruct my drivers to yank the Ethernet cable out of the Classmate in emergency situations, safety-related or not; no rule prohibits it, and I'm expecting that FMS would react as if you e-stopped. GDC, please reconsider.