I have to admit...when I saw the thumbnail of that robot in CD-Media, my first thought was 'illegal bumpers...not again'. Plenty of other robots managed to violate various tenets of that bumper rule, so 488 is in good company.
One of the things you get to see as an inspector—that perhaps isn't totally evident when the GDC is writing the rules, or when the teams are building the robots—is the level of hardship involved in correcting some rules violations.
The classic example of a devastating violation is an oversized robot: if you built it 38.25 inches long, the amount of work required to pass inspection will generally be vast. In 488's case, there was much less work required. Depending on the particulars of the situation, the inspector has to decide what to pass, and what to fail.
There are a lot of schools of thought with regard to this issue. Some say that if it doesn't give the team an advantage on the field, it should be overlooked. I'd say there's a whole lot more to it than that. On one level, as noted above, your participation in FRC is implicit acceptance of the rules in the book—you can't ignore what you don't like. (If you could
expect to get away with violations, there would be an incentive to badger the inspectors hoping for leniency through exasperation. That can't be suborned.) Although I can conceive of some extenuating circumstances where this might not be appropriate, for the vast majority of situations, if you aren't complying with an explicit provision of the rules, you need to fix it.
That of course raises the question:
when do you have to fix it? (Right now, even if you have a match in 5 minutes? After your next match? Tomorrow? Next event?) One of the objectives of the volunteer corps at an event is to make sure every team competes. To what extent can an inspector bend a rule, or suspend it temporarily, in order to achieve another important objective? It's not especially clear. FIRST hasn't provided much official guidance on this issue, instead preferring, I believe, to let individual lead inspectors make rulings within the parameters of their experience and judgment. It's not the most consistent outcome, but it does have the advantage of flexibility. Despite this, I understand completely the issue that many teams have with this—though most are too polite to admit it: why did that other team get away with something obviously illegal?
The trouble with the "pity pass" is that it allows teams to expend dramatically less resources than the other, more conscientious teams. If you get away with a bumper violation (let's say the much-reviled full support of bumpers clause), it means that you now have time to fix the autonomous mode, or watch an opponent's match, or run to the concessions to get lunch. Compare that to the team that realizes a fault, and resolves to correct it—they're sending people to other pits or the hardware store to gather supplies, and making mechanical changes. In effect, despite the exact degree of support of bumpers being totally immaterial on the overwhelming majority of robot designs, there is still a competitive advantage embodied in not complying. As such, inspectors will generally say that you need to fix the problem.
Despite this, there are some cases where noncompliance ends up being permitted, despite the fact that an advantage is gained. In some instances, teams have arrived with illegal motors on board, and can't remove them in time, without catastrophically hurting their chances to play their matches. If all that stands between a robot and gameworthiness is an illegal motor, then often the team will be passed with one strict restriction: that motor must be electrically disconnected, marked illegal and then removed at the earliest possible opportunity. The principal advantage (of an illegal motor) is negated, but the secondary advantage (of not having to get rid of it) is sometimes tolerated. That sort of thing isn't directly permitted in the rules; there's no clause offering inspectors discretion to bend rules when expeditious. In a backhanded way, that's a good thing—if the rule was poorly written, it would give the (relatively rare) less-than-competent inspector licence to bend rules in a capricious and inconsistent way. In the short term, we rely on the lead inspectors to make these sorts of calls, and when the lead inspectors can't justify the level of distortion of a rule that would be necessary, they can call FIRST HQ for a consultation (strictly at their own option—disgruntled teams can't make the call for them!). In the long term, perhaps it would be valuable to create a contingencies section of the rules, in order to explain in general terms that in certain cases, when all of these factors have been taken into consideration, FIRST supports this practice on a limited basis.
Now, returning to something that came up earlier: why are we enforcing provisions in the rules that are mostly useless? After all, not every rule is of equal importance or equal impact. The bumper rule, among several others, contains a number of specifications that are not especially important to gameplay, safety or other stated FIRST priorities. Teams are often understandably frustrated, for example, when confronted with a rule that makes an arbitrary but functionally immaterial distinction between parts. Inspectors can hardly take joy in having to tell a team that their careful engineering is for naught, because they used pneumatic tubing that was
smaller than the only permissible size. And although you can blame the team for not reading the rule (which was plainly written in the manual), ultimately, it's a matter of having better rules, so that these issues don't come up in the first place. These are issues that the GDC needs to consider.
Another argument that comes up often in these sorts of discussions is that in real life, you can't possibly follow every law—so why is it necessary in FIRST? Well, FIRST isn't a perfect simulation of real life (nor is it realistically intended to be one, I don't think). In real life, nobody rewrites the body of law every year—but in FIRST, only this year's rules matter. In real life,
precedent has a specific role in law—but in FIRST, precedents are not binding, infuriating as that might be when you pass inspection at one event and fail at the next. And most importantly, the laws of the real world deal with things of critical importance like liberties and rights—but in FIRST, the rules, and the procedures for applying and complying with the rules are drastically narrower in scope. Personally, while I might advocate for leniency in some areas of social policy (given the importance and consequences of those aspects of law), I tend to take a harder line within the limited scope of the FIRST rulebook.
To turn the usual example on its head: the rulebook is
only 171 pages. That's a good deal, compared to any real-world jurisdiction's body of law, so take it and read it!
Similarly, while on one hand, the rulebook encourages us to use engineering judgment in interpreting rules, it does not offer an opportunity for engineering expertise to trump a specification. This statement in the rulebook probably creates more problems than it solves, because in stating the obvious, it also lends itself to the misinterpretation that simply because a practice or design is safe and effective (in someone's engineering judgment), it ought to be allowed at inspection. Teams regularly attempt to justify gross violations by saying that they wholeheartedly believed that they were complying with the intent of the rules—despite the fact that intent is rarely explained at all, and even more rarely stated officially in a form that can lead an inspector to override a rule. Most of the time,
we're all guessing about the rule-writers' intent—and that makes it largely unsuitable for use in making on-site rulings.
There's another situation which sometimes compels a lead inspector to bend a rule—in effect, it's like
negligent misrepresentation on FIRST's part (though in reality, the contractual arrangements between FIRST and a team probably aren't sufficient to justify the actual tort, nor would I be especially enthused at the prospect of litigation on that front). When FIRST tells the teams something via official or semi-official channels, teams can be expected to rely upon that information. If that message subtly contradicts a rule, or leads the team to interpret the rule in a way that satisfies the text of the rule, but which was not previously contemplated by FIRST—and was clearly not intended by the GDC—it doesn't matter: FIRST is still on the hook for their previous statement. The credibility of the competition depends on the ability of teams to trust the information that they receive, and when FIRST has made an error, the officials need to consider doing what equity demands. (I point out that rulings on this basis are exceedingly rare—if you're going to argue this, you'd better have an airtight case.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken Streeter
Upon re-reading the original posting, it seems the original poster may have instead been seeking the collective opinion of CD readers of what a team should do when they observe another team who is violating a rule.
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Ken's comments on what to do about an observed violation are also helpful. No doubt, this is a complicated problem. If you feel comfortable reminding the other team of its obligation, then do so—but of course, some people do not appreciate that sort of comment, and it could affect your relationship with that team. My preference would be to tell the lead inspector or head referee—they're the volunteers who are empowered to deal with this sort of thing. The trouble with that is that you probably don't want to acquire a reputation as a snitch, or feel that you're imposing a potentially severe penalty upon a team. My response is that each team is responsible for following the rules: it's not the fault of the person reporting a violation—it's the fault of the violator, or at best a circumstance without fault that still needs to be ameliorated.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken Streeter
PS: G45 is another rule where the referees had to make such a judgment call. 469's primary robot strategy would succeed / fail depending upon the interpretation of that rule. I believe that despite being under intense scrutiny, 469 stayed on the legal side of that line. However, their success points out that it is extremely important to teams designing robots to know where these regulatory lines are drawn, as the success / failure of a robot strategy is often highly dependent upon the exact rulings that will be made. Often times, there is a huge advantage in being able to come up right to the border of rule legality (without stepping over) as contrasted to instead choosing a design which stays well back from the border of rule legality. It is extremely frustrating to teams to make a design to come up right to the edge of the written rules (but no farther) and then to see other teams that stepped completely over the written rule, enjoying a significant competitive advantage because of their transgression.
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I can absolutely sympathize with Ken's feelings here. When a rule isn't adequately explained, there are always nagging questions about where the boundary lies. This year, 469 took a bit of a risk by forging ahead with a design that could, depending on the interpretation of the rules, be considered illegal due to <G45> (active mechanisms contacting the ball), and arguably <R16> via <G46> (ball penetration into a mechanism above the bumper zone). While the <G45> question was addressed in an early team update, the <R16> question was never formally dealt with—and could have resulted in a nasty ruling going against them. (The issue was that the meaning of "inside a MECHANISM or feature designed or used to deflect BALLS in a controlled manner that is above the level of the BUMPER ZONE" was not clear. Is "inside" defined as being within some imaginary boundary drawn through the maximum extents of the mechanism? Passing more than three inches through a closed loop in the mechanism? Subtending more than three inches of the ball between points of contact, below a plane parallel to the motion vector of the ball?*)
I can't blame teams for being scared of being on the wrong side of an ambiguously-constructed rule. Actually, if you want a perfect example, consider Ken's team (1519) in 2008—they had issues with the interpretation of the definition of "robot", despite doing their due diligence to stay on the right side of the law. It was actually a bit embarrassing to see a robotics competition use a poorly constructed definition of "robot", and enforce it to the detriment of a team. (Even if the team was in the wrong—which I don't think they were—this is one of the rare instances where that negligent misrepresentation exception could have been rightfully suggested—at least, I believe so in my unofficial capacity as a bystander.)
*This was (basically) the definition we used in Waterloo, because it was the least restrictive definition that would universally be understood as being "inside".