Game Manual - Team Update - 2014-03-11

[Answer42]

Originally Posted by MrForbes

I'm glad we're a bottom team.

Not trying to insult anyone here. FRC has a lot of different levels of competitiveness. But honestly? You've never had motors or gearboxes ready to go in case something broke in previous years? Never made a major change to a robot at competition? By bottom teams I meant those that don't plan ahead for failures.

[Nathan Streeter]

Glad to see G26-1 fixed! It was causing way too many fouls... and I've never seen them called for the reason the rule was written... the "chokehold" defensive strategy of mechanically clogging the opponent's low goals. I was getting tired of having to look for and call these fouls as a ref!

The modification to R18 makes sense in a lot of ways... it prohibits teams from leaving their complete practice robot outside the event and then going to scavenge spares off of it depending on what's needed (launcher if that breaks, but drivebase transmissions of those fail). Unfortunately it still has it's issues (as discussed at length above)... even if you neglect the problems inherent to the whole bagging/witholding allowance/spare parts process.

[mrnoble]

If it's true (and I'm sure it is) that some teams have in the past brought a bunch of (even a trailer full of) spare parts with the sole purpose of supporting teams in need, then I feel for them and hope that at some point there is a q&a that addresses their plight. It is unfortunate that GDC was put in this position. The rule was intended to prevent teams from having free and full access to whatever spare mechanisms they might find themselves in need of as they move through competition, which is an advantage that most teams cannot have, and which isn't an advantage based on strategy, good design, or forethought (other than "bring extras of everything"). When individuals that represent teams made their opinion known (here) that the rule might not apply outside the physical space of the venue etc., it became imperative for the GDC to respond and clarify that the apparent meaning of the rule was its actual meaning. The GDC appears to have weighed the worst outcomes of both scenarios (allowed or disallowed), and determined that it would be more damaging to FRC to have teams cheating and winning than to have teams inconvenienced or required to make spare parts in the pit, or be unable to offer some kinds of assistance to other teams in need.

[Jim Giacchi]

I'm not sure if this has happened yet, but has FIRST actually enforced this rule and disqualified a team?

I know for certain that in 2012 a team detached their shooter and brought it in separate from the robot. A very sharp robot inspector saw it, figured hey that seems heavy and had them weigh it. Sure enough it was over the limit. The inspector told them they couldn't use the assembly. His suggested course of action was to remove the motors and gearboxes, essentially putting those parts back to COTS and it would have dropped the weight below the threshold. The team was a somewhat veteran team and called up to FIRST who promptly told the inspector to quit it....

Does anyone have any examples of a team being punished for an infraction of this rule? Just curious as it seems silly if FIRST isn't enforcing it and from my admittedly limited experience, I have not seen that.

[AllenGregoryIV]

Originally Posted by Jim Giacchi

I'm not sure if this has happened yet, but has FIRST actually enforced this rule and disqualified a team?

I know for certain that in 2012 a team detached their shooter and brought it in separate from the robot. A very sharp robot inspector saw it, figured hey that seems heavy and had them weigh it. Sure enough it was over the limit. The inspector told them they couldn't use the assembly. His suggested course of action was to remove the motors and gearboxes, essentially putting those parts back to COTS and it would have dropped the weight below the threshold. The team was a somewhat veteran team and called up to FIRST who promptly told the inspector to quit it....

Does anyone have any examples of a team being punished for an infraction of this rule? Just curious as it seems silly if FIRST isn't enforcing it and from my admittedly limited experience, I have not seen that.

I've had teams remove spare parts that were obviously over the weight limit (Whole drive trains and mechanisms). I have also had to give a stern talking to to teams that bring practice robots to the event. I have never had to disqualify a team.

[Gregor]

Originally Posted by Jim Giacchi

I'm not sure if this has happened yet, but has FIRST actually enforced this rule and disqualified a team?

I know for certain that in 2012 a team detached their shooter and brought it in separate from the robot. A very sharp robot inspector saw it, figured hey that seems heavy and had them weigh it. Sure enough it was over the limit. The inspector told them they couldn't use the assembly. His suggested course of action was to remove the motors and gearboxes, essentially putting those parts back to COTS and it would have dropped the weight below the threshold. The team was a somewhat veteran team and called up to FIRST who promptly told the inspector to quit it....

Does anyone have any examples of a team being punished for an infraction of this rule? Just curious as it seems silly if FIRST isn't enforcing it and from my admittedly limited experience, I have not seen that.

If FIRST really told an inspector to stop enforcing a rule then I don't know what to say.

[MrForbes]

Originally Posted by Answer42

Not trying to insult anyone here. FRC has a lot of different levels of competitiveness. But honestly? You've never had motors or gearboxes ready to go in case something broke in previous years? Never made a major change to a robot at competition? By bottom teams I meant those that don't plan ahead for failures.

No insult taken....I get a chuckle out of some of the assumptions about teams competing at different levels.

We build the robots so they won't break easily, and when we make mistakes and have to fix things, we deal with it as necessary. One year we made a few spare assemblies for stuff we thought might get broken, of course the spares were not needed, we had to fix other stuff instead.

This year we are bringing only a couple pounds of "fabricated items" in with us. It's mostly due to laziness.

[Steve W]

Originally Posted by Jim Giacchi

I'm not sure if this has happened yet, but has FIRST actually enforced this rule and disqualified a team?

Does anyone have any examples of a team being punished for an infraction of this rule? Just curious as it seems silly if FIRST isn't enforcing it and from my admittedly limited experience, I have not seen that.

I am an LRI and inspector. I have in the last 2 years told teams to remove overweight items from the pit area. They did so immediately. If they disassembled them and brought them back in pieces I did not notice but with big size becomes big target. I have never been told that I am wrong for enforcing the rules.

[falconmaster]

Originally Posted by nixiebunny

I caused a rule change (R18). Whee!

I am still not clear on whether it's OK to bring a practice bot to a nearby storage facility and remove COTS parts from it, as long as no fabricated items are removed from it and brought into the venue.

That's what started the whole brouhaha in the first place. I never planned to take pieces of the robot itself into the venue (it's a fragile practice machine with wooden gussets), just as a source of Talons, CIMs etc.

Whatever... We'll bring a couple Talons and CIMs to the Phoenix regional, and leave the practice bot in Tucson.

You can bring it and leave it at our school!

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by Kevin Sheridan

You can still bring you practice bot to get COTS items off of it.

Like anything else you read on Chief Delphi, this advice will have no value whatsoever during Inspection.

Advice that is likely to be more useful can be found here.

[JesseK]

I can't wait for districts so we can get rid of this 2-robot nonsense. Our kids do so much more than just FRC we barely get the 2nd robot done in time for any useful form of practice.

Is anyone else growing more attuned to the idea of removing bag day altogether?

[Taylor]

Originally Posted by JesseK

Is anyone else growing more attuned to the idea of removing bag day altogether?

Yup. There's already a competition that does that.

[sdcantrell56]

Originally Posted by JesseK

I can't wait for districts so we can get rid of this 2-robot nonsense. Our kids do so much more than just FRC we barely get the 2nd robot done in time for any useful form of practice.

Is anyone else growing more attuned to the idea of removing bag day altogether?

All bag and tag does at this point is increase the cost of competing as well as the stress level. It is beyond time to get rid of requiring the robot to be bagged.

[Nick Lawrence]

Here's a scenario that the new ruling does not consider:

A team is competing at a 3 day, standard non-district regional competition. A team unbags their robot, gets through inspection, and goes out to play their first match. In that match, the team encounters heavy defense and breaks a custom drive axle. The team made spare drive axles in advance because of this scenario. However, during inital load in, they left one tote in their trailer that happened to contain those drive axles. Can you get them? Nope, you didn't bring those axles in during initial load in. Unless they can get that part manufactured at the event, that team now has to play with an under-performing drivetrain for the rest of the event. Is it fair to punish a team for a very simple oversight like this?

-Nick


As a side note, the teams who bring a practice robot in the trailer don't violate the 45LBS rule. They don't bring in the kitchen sink, just sometimes an intake arm. Half the time, they pull parts off the robot for other teams.

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by Nick Lawrence

Here's a scenario that the new ruling does not consider:

A team is competing at a 3 day, standard non-district regional competition.A team unbags their robot, gets through inspection, and goes out to play their first match. In that match, the team encounters heavy defense and breaks a custom drive axle. The team made spare drive axles because of this scenario. However, during inital load in, they left one tote in their trailer that happened to contain those drive axles. Can you get them? Nope, you didn't bring those axles in during initial load in. That team now has to play with an under-performing drivetrain for the rest of the event. Is it fair to punish a team for a very simple oversight like this?

-Nick


As a side note, the teams who bring a practice robot in the trailer don't violate the 45LBS rule. They don't bring in the kitchen sink, just sometimes an intake arm. Half the time, they pull parts off the robot for other teams.

^This

Our team typically leaves stuff in our transport vehicle because why cram our pit full of stuff we don't need or might not need. Guess its all or nothing on load in night from here on out.