Team Update 1-15-2013

[Bill_B]

It has been a long day with robots of plastic and aluminum at both ends. We're slow and were doing full-scale modeling to determine our compliance with 54" rule in its prior form. Now I read of the rules change and that several teams are feeling that their initial designs are now illegal. This is where the tired part comes in. I'm having trouble imagining how something legal for the vertical cylinder is now illegal for a tilted one. I'm sure those are right, just in a FRC fog at the moment I guess.

[Taylor]

Our design, our beautiful design, is in serious, serious question right now.
blog.
blarg.
ugh.
This.Inhales.Audibly.

[yarudl]

Originally Posted by Taylor

Our design, our beautiful design, is in serious, serious question right now.
blog.
blarg.
ugh.
This.Inhales.Audibly.

I'm sorry, but to the best of my understanding that design is now illegal. I can sympathize as my team is in the same place as yours. Our design is now illegal as well.

[Djur]

I'm happy to say that my team's level 3 climber design is still legal

[Donut]

Originally Posted by Taylor

Our design, our beautiful design, is in serious, serious question right now.
blog.
blarg.
ugh.
This.Inhales.Audibly.

I feel your pain. If we do climb our strategy likely involved flipping our frame off of the floor to give us a fairly long reach. Now I'm about 95% certain that design is illegal, I will have to do the math. It may be adaptable by rotating our frame relative to our climbing mechanism but it will almost certainly put our CG in an undesirable location.

This is a disappointing ruling from the GDC. Major changes like this shouldn't be necessary to the size restrictions, which are some of the most crucial rules teams have to design around. Coming in week 2 as teams are finishing prototypes and some have begun ordering parts is the real kicker.

[Rangel(kf7fdb)]

Looks like we found a relatively simple solution to fix our climbing for this update. However, this could have easily been a complete disaster for us since we are integrating all of our functions into one mechanism this year. I feel for all the other teams who will not have as easy of a time making their designs legal if they will even be able to use it at all.

[BigJ]

Originally Posted by Bill_B

It has been a long day with robots of plastic and aluminum at both ends. We're slow and were doing full-scale modeling to determine our compliance with 54" rule in its prior form. Now I read of the rules change and that several teams are feeling that their initial designs are now illegal. This is where the tired part comes in. I'm having trouble imagining how something legal for the vertical cylinder is now illegal for a tilted one. I'm sure those are right, just in a FRC fog at the moment I guess.

If your robot was cimbing up the outside of a leg (and was short), with your starting configuration parallel to the leg, you had a >54 inch long ellipse to reach/manipulate/etc with.

edit: just imagine slicing a plane through a vertical 54 inch cylinder at a 60 degree angle.

edit2: this is only one example