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Unread 08-04-2010, 02:45
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dtengineering dtengineering is offline
Teaching Teachers to Teach Tech
AKA: Jason Brett
no team (British Columbia FRC teams)
Team Role: Mentor
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Rookie Year: 2004
Location: Vancouver, BC
Posts: 1,833
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Re: Frustrations with Minor Technicalities

Quote:
Originally Posted by ICanCountTo19 View Post
If the rules were clearly and easily readable in one location and unchanging I could nearly guarantee my team's robot would be compliant, the problem is FIRST tries to clarify one rule and makes other rules unclear. We read just that update and assumed we were legal, but the way that update combines with other rules messed with us. Yes it's a rule. Yes we missed it. What I meant by minor technicality is that it got by 2 inspectors and gave us no competitive advantage. Yes we were illegal and it IS a rule you are correct. but compared to being overweight or out of the box it is a minor infraction.
I agree with you that the rules can be frustrating, and sometimes difficult to understand, but given the complexity of the task facing the GDC I have at least as much sympathy for the challenge to them in writing and interpreting the rules as I do for teams in our challenge to fully grasp all of them.

And I appreciate that sometimes the "little stuff" that gives no technical advantage is easy to overlook, and easy to miss, especially for rushed rookie tech inspectors who are trying to get a robot passed at seven o'clock on Thursday evening.

And I'm not trying to dump on teams who have missed something. I know what that feels like.

In "Rack'n'Roll", after passing tech in Portland, we were caught at GTR with a pneumatic cylinder (that we'd pulled off an old FRC bot and WAS legal the previous year) that was 8 1/2" long, rather than the 8" or 9" lengths allowed in the rules that year.

My first response was, "It's such a little thing... and our legal spare is 5,000km away... maybe it could slide." I don't think I really meant it, but was just facing a combination of dismay that I'd missed something, and concern that we might not be able to compete.

The LRI at the event (Tristan Lall) earned my enduring admiration by having none of that, apologizing that he didn't make the rule and that while the 1/2" length difference gave us no competitive advantage, that he did have to enforce the rules equally and for everyone. And then proceeding to help us find a legal replacement. Oddly enough... it actually made the robot work better and reinforced my dedication to making sure that we were compliant with ALL the rules.

I hold it up as an example of why FRC is the "gold standard" for robotics competitions, and an awesome example of how tech inspection SHOULD work.

So yeah... I appreciate that it takes a tonne of hard work to follow the rules, but I also recognize that it could be far, far worse if the GDC didn't really try hard to make them as clear as they do. And it would be absolutely disastrous if we didn't know which rules were going to be enforced, or how strictly they would be enforced. It actually makes life easier knowing that, as much as possible, every rule will be enforced 100%.

But yeah... it can be painful sometimes when you miss something.

Jason