Minibot TRIGGERing

[mcf747]

Hey everyone,

I think I might of missed an update or something, but I cant seem to find anything. Honestly I have been really busy with school over the past 2 weeks and have been absent from CD recently.

Rule update #18 referenced that they will be going "back" to automated tower triggering of minibot race only.

When I was in San Diego last weekend I noticed the judges calling minibot trigger's even though the tower did not trip. I was very surprised b/c I was sure that the manual very clearly states that a TRIGGER is the actuation of the limit switch in the plate mechanism and if it did not TRIGGER the limit switches, it would not count.

Update #18 combined with what I saw in San Diego implies that there was a deviation from the official manual, as far as what counts as a TRIGGER and consequent point allocation.

I am not starting this tread to debate the moral of this decision form FIRST, there are already numerous threads about that, I am simply asking where did the allowing of manual minibot race decisions originate from.

-Matthew

[EricH]

It originated because there were apparently a lot of minibots in Week 0 and Week 1 that didn't trigger the towers, despite hitting hard enough.

You may also want to check the thread on the Team Update.

[mcf747]

Thats what i figged from reading other threads.

But was there an official ruling/allowance/acknowledgement by FIRST?

-Matthew

[EricH]

Not publicly. More of a de facto, the refs call it this way, so that's the way it is.

[Racer26]

As far as I understand it, the situation is this:

Week 0 events (like Suffield Shakedown) were having issues, where a HOSTBOT colliding with the TOWER base with sufficient force could TRIGGER the TOWER.

FIRST HQ sent the message to Week 1 events to turn down a sensitivity setting on the TOWERs, which resulted in the TOWER requiring a signal lasting longer than X ms to TRIGGER.

At Week 1 events, many of the fastest MINIBOTs, while imparting the 2-4N force required to TRIGGER the TOWERs specified in the manual, did not dwell at the top of the TOWER for long enough to TRIGGER the TOWER, given the change that was made.

FIRST HQ made the call and told the refs at Week 1 events to manually score the TOWERs.

For Week 2, FIRST HQ sent out a parts kit to each event, which the setup team at each event had to apply to the TOWERs. This kit was supposed to change how the TOWERs work, in order to eliminate the dwell time that was required in Week 1.

The refs at Week 2 events were still scoring TOWERs manually, in the event that they did not score automatically.

Now in TU18, FIRST HQ has handed down the decision that refs are not to score manually anymore.

[Jessi Kaestle]

Though it appeared from the stands that the refs were scoring manually, they were just confirming that what they saw was what the FMS reported. Since this was a new fix, FIRST was not 100% that it would work as designed. Most of the time, at least in NYC, the tower triggered as designed.