Bag and Tag issues?

[Alex Cormier]

With the ship date and time here, many teams need to bag and tag while others need to crate them up.

I am wondering how many teams put the robot away with the bumpers on?

My prior experiences with bag and tag last year, showed that robots with bumpers still on them had a problem going through normal sized doors.

It's heart breaking to see a well engineered robot not be allowed into the event to compete because of the bumpers being on.


Good Luck this year!

See you soon at FLR.

[MrForbes]

We got ours thru the normal sized door in the storage room. But then we make the robot two inches below max size every year....

[pfreivald]

Our bumpers are on the robot, but not mounted to the frame... Does that count?

[hydrocannon]

we have are bumpers on but we havent completed the blue set yet

[Hallry]

Our bumpers aren't in the bag, but next to it in our storage crate. Both sets of them are completed.

[Grim Tuesday]

Originally Posted by Hallry

Our bumpers aren't in the bag, but next to it in our storage crate. Both sets of them are completed.

I hope you know that bumpers are counted in the withholding allowance...


And also, only our front bumpers are on, so we can go through a door!

[MagiChau]

We have our bumpers on, just so our robot looks complete until we use up part of our 6 hours to work before Traverse City.

[kgzak]

Our robot has bumpers on and we can get through the a normal sized door.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Hallry

Our bumpers aren't in the bag, but next to it in our storage crate. Both sets of them are completed.

Those bumpers now count against your witholding allowance.

[Hallry]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Those bumpers now count against your witholding allowance.

They are only in there (the crate in our shop) for now as means of storage, they are not in the bag itself.

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by Hallry

They are only in there (the crate in our shop) for now as means of storage, they are not in the bag itself.

Right -- which means that they now count against your withholding allowance. If they were in the bag, they would not.

[ttakashima]

Could someone please show me this rule. As it states the withholding allowance is for robot subsystems etc. Where as the bumper rules state only parts permanently attached to the robot are considered as part of the robot and not the bumper. I can't find or have missed the rule where you must ship your bumpers. Or a rule stating that bumpers are considered part of your robot.

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by ttakashima

Could someone please show me this rule.

http://forums.usfirst.org/showthread.php?t=17043

We're not trying to trick you, man.

[Tristan Lall]

Unfortunately, I think I see where this bumper confusion is coming from. The rules don't actually say that the bumpers are part of the robot, nor the hostbot in particular.* (It's not in the definitions of robot, hostbot or bumper, nor is it explicit in "The Robot".) They do make repeated references to the bumpers being attached to the robot, and even distinguish between parts of the robot and parts of the bumper. This could easily be interpreted as meaning the bumpers are a separate system, distinct from the robot.

And the <R11> exclusion is no help, because there's no explicit inclusive component to that rule—it says what bumpers aren't (part of the weight limit), but doesn't say what they are. (Similarly, it says that the operator console is not part of the weight limit, but doesn't say whether or not it's part of the robot. Same reasoning applies.)

We all (FIRST included, presumably) assume that they are part of the robot, because that's the way it worked before, but if FIRST didn't actually say so in the rulebook, why should we assume any given team will comply with our expectations, rather than use their own good-faith, logically-consistent reading of the rules?

Now, there was that Q&A that said bumpers count toward the withholding allowance—but if you're operating under the assumption that the bumpers aren't part of the robot (for the reasons described previously), then the Q&A is obviously erroneous: fabricated items are components, which are robot parts, and therefore bumpers couldn't be part of the withholding allowance, because they aren't robot parts at all. (And if the Q&A contradicts the rules, we have to go with the rules.)

So, let's make an effort to quote the relevant rule (to put this matter to rest).

*Feel free to correct me if I missed something. I didn't do as thorough a re-reading of the rules as I might have, because I really ought to be doing something else at the moment....

[pfreivald]

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

So, let's make an effort to quote the relevant rule (to put this matter to rest).

Yeah, sure. You go ahead and don't count your bumpers in your WITHHOLDING ALLOWANCE, and show up with 30 lbs of stuff plus bumpers, and see if you're deemed legal to compete...

From <R33> "All other FABRICATED ITEMS to be used on the ROBOT during the competition..."

Are bumpers used on the robot?

Did the actual rules, plus the Q&A clarification, somehow make this unclear?

Bumpers count toward your WITHHOLDING ALLOWANCE, plain as day. No amount of rules lawyering or pleading will make it otherwise.