2012 Lessons Learned:The Negative

[ratdude747]

Originally Posted by LeelandS

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I also think FIRST should move away from that age-old rule that teams aren't allowed to check field measurements for themselves. I don't see what harm there is in letting a drive crew/coach onto the field prior to opening ceremonies/the driver meeting with a tape measure to take some measurements. Or for an FTA to do it themselves and publish the results to all the teams. FIRST seems to cringe at the thought that their volunteers built their own field wrong, but I don't really see the harm.

This issue happened to 1747 in 2010. The field used at BMR was off as the tunnel was IIRC 1/2" too low. The robot didn't have that amount of tolerance height wise (it was pretty crammed to say the least) and it caused the robot to be unable to to use the tunnel. This issue might have cost us the regional, as one reason why we lost in the SFs was due to being blocked from crossing bumps by the defense.

BTW, the same field appeared at our second regional (Buckeye) as well...