Taking Robot out of Bag

[Dr.Gusta]

So tonight my team and I bagged the robot (drivebase/electronics) but we held back the entire manipulator which we plan on finishing in the next few weeks. What we were wondering is we have a fundraiser and with the rule change this year we are allowed to take the robot out of the bag to show off. What we were wondering is if we were allowed to put our manipulator on because all our robot would do is drive around without the manipulator.

[Hallry]

Have you checked the Manual? Specifically Section 5.4.3 of the Administrative Manual?

[Duncan Macdonald]

This is falls into a very dark grey bordering on black. Don't trust an answer on chiefdelphi, followup an official route.

[Dr.Gusta]

Yes I have and it is not clear on whether or not you can or can not add something for said robot display. What would be the official route?

[Hallry]

Originally Posted by Hallry

Have you checked the Manual? Specifically Section 5.4.3 of the Administrative Manual?

Originally Posted by Dr.Gusta

Yes I have and it is not clear on whether or not you can or can not add something for said robot display. What would be the official route?

According to the third bullet under Section 5.4.3 of the 2014 Administrative Manual:

• No activity that could be considered ‘work on’ or ‘practice with’ the robot is allowed.

I would consider adding on an entire finished manipulator doing work.

[omsahmad]

Originally Posted by Duncan Macdonald

This is falls into a very dark grey bordering on black. Don't trust an answer on chiefdelphi, followup an official route.

I agree, get an official response, but the rules do make it sound like you cannot add the manipulator. Officials may allow you to spend "X" hours working to attach the manipulator, then force you to leave the robot bagged "X" hours more at your first regional.

[Jon Stratis]

Please post the question on the Q&A. (https://frc-qa.usfirst.org/Questions.php)

The way I read it, you can't do any work on your robot during a robot display unbag period, which includes attaching your manipulator. Think of it like this: if you unbag for the demo and put the mechanism on then rebag it, you've just gained the advantage in time that you otherwise would have spent at the regional attaching the mechanism.

[Ginger Power]

What if they put the manipulator on for display purposes but then undid any work they did before they rebag it. For all intents and purposes no "work" was done to the robot. . . except possibly practice at quickly putting on a manipulator when they get to the regional. Definitely a question for Q&A as others have stated. But I see no reason why it would be a problem as long as the robot goes into the bag the same way it was taken out.

[Mark McLeod]

We also have a fundraiser with sponsors, but we will not mount any of our held back parts.
We plan to display our held back manipulator on a temporary stand beside the unbagged robot.

The problem with mounting anything at all to the unbagged robot, is that it will give you information you otherwise should not have had. Something as simple as noticing the clearance isn't what it should be, or the mounting holes are misaligned.

We would have to hear a favorable decision from FIRST Q&A before we would consider doing anything to the unbagged part.

[kk052]

installing the part on the robot you have said would be practice at installing the part, which is practice, whish is illegal. however this "unbag for show" deal should be revised by first to be more specific. if you want to mod the robot you must use your 2 hour mod periods.

[cglrcng]

I knew personally that particular rule change would start some people turning black & white into pushing some really grey areas..."No work" usually means NO WORK....I would fully expect the proper Q & A answer to be...I hope. As by midnight tonight, it is supposed to be in the bag "not interfaced with" (to me that means even looking into or through the bag to compare, etc. is out of bounds).

They are allowing you to continue fundraising and such w/ it, within very specific limits. Will that be pushed? I'm sure it will it seems already. But...Not in our shop for our team....We did all our shows, etc. in the last few weeks (in the bag it went and into a room that is out of sight, out of mind, & NOT TO BE INTERFACED WITH, like it was already in a crate and shipped tomorrow morning)....It is actually locked away in a maint. closet room where none of the team could possibly interface w/ it....It will be loaded to take to the first regional just as it was bagged & sealed tonight. (Unload...To the pit, inspector present, break seal, unbag, 6 bolts out and back in on the intake, add the bumpers and a fresh battery & head to inspection...Then to the field for a full practice day Thursday! YEAH!) Well, that is the plan anyway!

In all fairness, we did build another practice toy like it (similar, but not an exact duplicate....It has some "wud & plenty of zip ties like that great chsy poofs vid bot" that needs some sanding laquer & staining.....and plenty of stainless steel zip ties it appeared...lol), the first 2 weeks, but both will be slightly different & neither will act just exactly like the other. (We will show that 1 repeatedly, though not nearly as nice a looker as the comp bot...And we have all those pretty pics we can show too, not to mention they can also be invited to see it live and in action in competition we hope at least 3 times in the next couple of months!)

[Billfred]

I went ahead and asked this question on Q&A, in the hopes of clearing the air:

Originally Posted by Q395

Regarding Section 5.4.3: We withheld a significant mechanism on our robot. Without this bolts-and-two-wires mechanism, our robot is far less demo-able. Is it "working on" if we unbag, bolt the withheld parts into existing holes to demo, unbolt, and bag a Clearly Completely Un-Worked-On Robot?

[FrankJ]

Not really the same question, but I think you can apply the intent. Frank (the other one) said in his blog that teams that could not access their robot on stop build could bag them late "as is". As in no additional work.

[Chris Fultz]

FIRST did us all a great favor by allowing us to access the robots for demonstrations and community events.

Our open house is Thursday Night (delayed because of so many snow days) and we intend to simply unbag the robot so people can see it clearly, and bag it back up at the end of the evening. No work, no adjustments, no fitting of other parts.

If teams cross the line and abuse this new option, we could quikly be back to the "Bag and Forget" option of the past and that would be disappointing.

In my opinion, fitting a manipulator is working on the robot, for all of the reasons stated by others.

[Michael Hill]

Originally Posted by Chris Fultz

FIRST did us all a great favor by allowing us to access the robots for demonstrations and community events.

Our open house is Thursday Night (delayed because of so many snow days) and we intend to simply unbag the robot so people can see it clearly, and bag it back up at the end of the evening. No work, no adjustments, no fitting of other parts.

If teams cross the line and abuse this new option, we could quikly be back to the "Bag and Forget" option of the past and that would be disappointing.

In my opinion, fitting a manipulator is working on the robot, for all of the reasons stated by others.

I'm inclined to agree with this. I do question software though. If you bagged your robot with no code on it, but have been working on a separate robot, can you download the code you've been working on so you can drive/demo?