Mad Dash for the Controls?

[Madison]

Originally posted by ChrisH
[b]All this talk about safety is just a smokescreen.

For some, perhaps. For others, it's definitely not. We don't want to see people get hurt. Ever. It's really that simple. Our intention is honorable, whether you choose to believe it or not.

The rule is to prevent teams from switching from "attack the highest stack" to "bring home the boxes" or vise versa during the human player portion of the match. It may be that there are technological "holes" in the system that will allow you to do this and that cannot be prevented any other way. I don't know because I for one haven't been looking.

My concern is simply that there are probably simpler, equally effective ways to see that the intent of the autonomous period is upheld that don't present an additional safety risk. Nobody should get hurt by tools, or by stepping over the barrier onto the field, or by doing thousands of other things that happen at the competition. But, it does happen. I can't see the point in adding another opportunity for someone to cause themselves physical harm. It's easy enough to walk three feet, or take a giant step, or long jump, or whatever. Now. During the excitement and insanity of a competition, the students will be thinking about so much more than just taking that step that, in my opinion, it presents an additional risk.

I'm a complete clutz when I'm excited. I'm not alone in this.

At least those of you who are looking were silly enough to post it here, so everybody knows about it and something can be done. If you were REALLY intelligent and discovered some method to do this, you would understand the tremendous competitive advantage and keep your yap shut. Then you would just use it in competition in such a way that people would marvel at either your programming skill or your ability to read the other team's mind. But you wouldn't say anything about it, certainly not here.

I was among the first people, if not the first person, to ask FIRST about the legality of using the E-Stop button to cycle through autonomous programs. I noted to my team, however, that its effectiveness would be limited because of the time it would take to cycle through, initialize, and begin running any one of several programs. 15 seconds isn't that long, after all.

FIRST is an opportunity for me to tackle problems that have long been solved. It presents me with an amazing "what if" opportunity. I'm notorious among teams for never, ever taking the easy way out. I design everything I can from scratch, learning from the past, but trying to improve upon it or do things a little bit differently. I would hazard a guess that there are many other people like me, and while they may not have the same opportunities to experiment that I do, their mind is always working.

I don't consider it ungracious or unprofessional to fully examine and consider all aspects of a problem. I've asked FIRST many questions about the legality of certain mechanisms, processes, and strategies - and though I intended to use very few, if any, of them, it gives me a chance to get inside the game and consider what other people may be considering as strategies.

There's nothing wrong with being thorough, in my mind. Sorry.

In fact, I think that asking about these matters is not a result of stupidity, or malice, or childishness. It's about respect for the intent of the rules.

We all could have easily, quickly, and effectively done things to circumvent the need for true, unassisted autonomy. Instead, because we are aware of the intent of the rule, we asked.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Sometimes, you just can't win, I suppose.