Quote:
Originally Posted by 45Auto
Because that's the first time you've had inspectors that noticed it and were aware of the rule. Why complain when someone points out to you that you're breaking a rule? The inspectors are volunteers and only human, they're under lots of pressure to get a bunch of robots through inspection as fast as possible. A lot of them are not intimately familiar with FIRST, robots, or all of the rules.
As was noted earlier, R75 has been around for a long time. Just because you and others got away with something for several years doesn't make it legal.
I expect our team to be thoroughly aware of all the rules. We have 6 weeks to make sure our robot is legal, the inspectors only have a few minutes.
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Teams WILL overlook some rules, most of them minor technicalities, as the OP said. Teams who do not read the rules are at fault, but there is no point attacking posters when they clearly were responsible and generally were knowledgeable of the rules, their original intent, and their updates. I'm amazed when people are still surprised that robots can possess balls 5 weeks into the build season (half my team was unsure whether our ball roller was legal a couple weeks before the Boston Regional, a testament to the fact that few care about rules as much as they should), but this I can understand.
Maybe we shouldn't spend our time criticizing teams for not knowing minute details, but instead make a point that things do change, and that teams should always have a fallback plan when they do. Teams that push the limits of rules without fallbacks are playing with fire (I admire 469 for that. They would have had a very effective robot, even if the original intent of their robot was disallowed in competition). Being able to evolve as the season wears on, I think, is a skill many times more useful than being able to read the rules.