[FRC Blog] Gracious Professionalism and Coopertition

[Francis-134]

It is not illegal to use a timeout for another alliance. You cannot, however, have one alliance use a timeout, then have the other alliance use their timeout (i.e. cascading timeouts).

[EricH]

Not legal: Giving your timeout coupon to another alliance.
Not legal: Calling your timeout either right before or right after the other alliance calls theirs.
Legal: Calling your timeout just because your opponents look like they need more time, and haven't called theirs for whatever reason, including having used it earlier. (You're doing a robot repair: the batteries need more charge. )

[Electronica1]

You could just say your driver happens to need to use the bathroom at the same time the other alliance needs the timeout.

[orangemoore]

Provided that all rules are followed in the timing of when a timeout may be used, I think FIRST would be crazy to not allow for an alliance to take a timeout because it was to help the other alliance.

That being said, all of those teams should be proud of the gracious professionalism that they have showed.

[bduddy]

I'm not saying any team involved did anything wrong or anything like that.
BUT... I'm not entirely sure if I like something like this being put in the FRC blog. Basically, it says that this is something you should do, without providing details as to exactly why. Now, if some robot on the other alliance suffers an unexpected calamity, or breaks because you hit them overly hard in the last match, then I would think that it would be graciously professional to use your timeout for them. But, if their robot just happened to break... well, isn't building a robust and reliable robot part of the game? Should alliances really be expected to give up one of their most important resources to accommodate for their opponents' failure? Maybe it's just me, but I don't think so. We're not expected to handicap ourselves on the field, why does it seem like most expect timeouts to work that way?

I apologize if this post comes off as mean or ungracious or anything like that, but I just think that this becoming essentially expected behavior in all cases is not a good thing.

[Oblarg]

Originally Posted by bduddy

Should alliances really be expected to give up one of their most important resources to accommodate for their opponents' failure?

In short: Yes; and if not "expected," then at least "greatly encouraged." FRC is not just a competition, and the members of the opposing alliance are not simply "opponents." It is a communal engineering challenge, and everyone gets the most out of it when all participants are at their best. It is far more inspiring to see this approach to FIRST than to see an alliance lose their last match because they lacked the time or resources to correct a mechanical failure.

The game on the field is not the end-goal of FIRST; it is a tool for achieving that end-goal.