New Perimeter Rules Reflection

[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!)

[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.