New Perimeter Rules Reflection

[avanboekel]

Now that the season is over, what do teams think of the new perimeter rules?

Did it really have an impact on the game? Would things have played out differently if we had the old 28"x38" size constraints?

Did we ever get an explanation of why FIRST changed from the old rules? Do you think these rules will stay the same for next year?

[Twest3259]

I enjoy the new Perimeter rules, do to it not constraining teams to a square box.
I've seen octagons Triangles and countless other shapes of bases this year and i hope FIRST keeps the perimeter rules. As far as things playing out differently, maybe? You cannot be sure. there are plenty of Square/rectangle bots that made it deep into competition, but there are also many many good non traditional based robots.

[CENTURION]

Originally Posted by Twest3259

I enjoy the new Perimeter rules, do to it not constraining teams to a square box.
I've seen octagons Triangles and countless other shapes of bases this year and i hope FIRST keeps the perimeter rules. As far as things playing out differently, maybe? You cannot be sure. there are plenty of Square/rectangle bots that made it deep into competition, but there are also many many good non traditional based robots.

I'm with you!

I loved seeing wacky robot shapes instead of the same rectangular boxes all over the place.

[IKE]

I liked it. Though a friendly reminder of common door widths may help.

[Jon Stratis]

As an LRI, I LOVED the new frame perimeter rule this year. A vast majority of the teams that had sizing issues could fix them pretty easily (with the exception of 1 team at each of my regionals who built to last year's specs).

Before, there were headaches with teams building right up to the 28"x38" size limit, then not fitting into the box because of bolt heads - this would usually necessitate a fairly significant re-design, in order to gain 1/4".

This year, if a team was slightly over sized they could quickly and easily fix it with slightly rounded corners (while a "reasonably astute observer" could still call it a corner).

I also feel that the smaller footprint helped teams stay under weight. I did not have a single team that was significantly over weight (meaning they had to remove functionality to make weight). Sure, there was a team or two that was a half lb over and had to work for it, but being overweight seemed to be the exception, instead of the expectation this year.

Being over size or overweight will still be the easiest (and quickest) way to fail inspection... but I think those two reasons didn't top the list of most frequent reasons this year, which is simply a win for everyone involved!

Originally Posted by IKE

I liked it. Though a friendly reminder of common door widths may help.

While I don't have anything to prove this, I suspect that's why they picked 112" - 112/4 = 28", which was the old limit to account for common door widths. This doesn't take into account creative robots with less than 4 sides though (a round robot, for example, could hit 35" in diamater!)

[bardd]

The major effect of frame being measured by perimeter, as was already mentioned, was no more than the robot shapes.

What DID have a big effect on the game was the perimiter you were allowed to have. 112" of perimeter does not allow as big a footprint as 28X38. It's about 6.2% less, if you create a circular frame, and if you go with a more traditional square, 26.3% less. The kitbot has 33.8% less footprint area than last year's 28X38, and that was the easiest option that most teams used (we did).

Because of that, fitting mechanisms into the robot was much harder, and demanded more tradeoffs. Because of that we saw much less robots perform many tasks, and none could do all (the closest was 469 IMO that could do anything except climb and dump).

I do like the perimeter rule, it allows a lot more flexibility in frame design, but I really hope they would make it bigger so teams could do more.


tl;dr- Perimeter good, 112" bad.

[gyroscopeRaptor]

I think that many of the creative frames were due to climbing. We might not see as many creative frames if the endgame doesn't require the same creativity.

[EricH]

The new perimeter rule will also be a LOT easier to tweak than changing a size box. Larger robot? Increase perimeter. Inspectors then just have to remember to use a longer (or shorter, if the size decreases) measuring string or tape.

I'm really hoping that this makes a return next year, along with the '07 height/weight classes (hey, I can dream, right?).

[vhcook]

As an inspector, I liked the perimeter rule. I didn't have any teams have to make a correction, unlike the old problem where the frame going off square made the robot not fit the box anymore. The tape measure was a little more annoying to manipulate than the box, but I think it's better for the teams.

Originally Posted by bardd

Because of that, fitting mechanisms into the robot was much harder, and demanded more tradeoffs. Because of that we saw much less robots perform many tasks, and none could do all (the closest was 469 IMO that could do anything except climb and dump).

Did you see 1986? Floor pickup, 7 disc auton, rapid cycling, 30 point climb. Ok, they didn't dump once they were up there, but come on...

There were some other robots that could do nearly everything but I'll admit they were relatively rare. I don't think the reason for that was space. The tasks were not easy, and teams made strategic design choices to stay within their ability to execute well. A little more space might have gotten you a handful more teams that could do it all, but I don't think it would have made that big a difference. Larger might even have made climbing harder by moving the typical robot's center of gravity farther from the pyramid.

I'll admit we felt a bit of a crunch fitting in electrical and the pneumatics due to the space limitations, which was made even harder due to the design choice to go short, but we'd already decided we weren't climbing for more than 10 before we even started space allocation.

[cbale2000]

Personally, I liked the flexibility of the of the rules as far as the dimensions and shapes it allowed. It was quite interesting to see how some teams took advantage of the rules to come up with everything from very square machines to unusually elongated ones (I'm looking at you 326)

That said, the smaller total perimeter was, in my opinion, a huge headache for building the robot and even more-so for finding space for electronics. Particularly for teams like ours that didn't take advantage of using a non-standard frame shape, the smaller overall size was a pain.

I'd personally like to see FIRST revert to the previous max frame perimeter size, but keep the flexibility of this years shape and dimension rules.

[bardd]

Originally Posted by vhcook

Did you see 1986? Floor pickup, 7 disc auton, rapid cycling, 30 point climb. Ok, they didn't dump once they were up there, but come on...

No FCS...

[IKE]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

While I don't have anything to prove this, I suspect that's why they picked 112" - 112/4 = 28", which was the old limit to account for common door widths. This doesn't take into account creative robots with less than 4 sides though (a round robot, for example, could hit 35" in diamater!)

Correct. This year I have observed a few round robots, 1 hexagon, and many "triangular" corner climbers that potentially had issues going through a standard doorway. I liked that it was the perogative of the team to decide how they wanted their bot to look, and all of the robots I saw found a way to make it through standard doors, but many of the odd shapes required tilting to make it through the more narrow doorways. Had they also made those robots tall, they may have had a real problem (which is why I suggested a reminder as opposed to a rule).

[Kris Verdeyen]

Having smaller robots allowed faster gameplay and fewer traffic jams. Watch the videos from last year, and the field looks crowded, and not just because of all the bridges.

[Walter Deitzler]

Originally Posted by IKE

I liked it. Though a friendly reminder of common door widths may help.

Quoted for the truth.

We had a 32" wide front this year, and a massive arm on the top of the robot. Doors were not our friends

[Whippet]

Originally Posted by bardd

No FCS...

That's not necessarily true. I remember them telling me at Hub City that they could, but didn't see it as being worth it strategically.