[FRC Blog] Orlando Incident

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Cory

I'm glad Frank has cleared this up.

It still concerns me that there seems to be a precedent set here where a team can be retroactively DQ'ed for being in violation of a robot rule.

T6 seems to have been taken to the extreme and interpreted to mean that if a team is ever in a condition where they would not currently pass inspection (but were previously inspected), they can be DQ'ed from a match at any point in time thereafter.

My interpretation of the rule is that a team must have passed initial inspection in order to play and that any condition that puts them out of compliance with the rules must be remedied as soon as it is called to their attention, before they can go on the field again, per G4

Perhaps a Q&A is appropriate here.

It's just an application of T10

If a ROBOT is modified after it has passed Inspection, other than modifications described in T8, that ROBOT must be re-Inspected.

'

Followed by T6

A Team is only permitted to participate in a Qualification or Elimination MATCH and receive Qualification Points if their ROBOT has passed Inspection. If it is discovered after the start of the MATCH that a ROBOT did not pass Inspection and the Team participated in the MATCH, the entire ALLIANCE receives a RED CARD for that MATCH.

Consider the following scenario:

Team 1337 passes inspection weighing 100lbs.
Team 1337 plays Match1
Team 1337 decides they need to ballast their bot, they add 15lbs of ballast.

Would anyone object to saying that 1337 needs to be re-inspected? If not, we can safely say that their first inspection no longer counts and they HAVEN'T passed inspection. Obviously, Match1 is legal but any matches until they get reinspected they are playing with an uninspected robot. Why is this important? What if instead of adding 15lbs of steel ballast they added 25lbs of steel ballast? Or changed some wiring to be a smaller gauge and now it is a potential fire risk?

[rsisk]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

I heard there was a pilot of a new event management app in MAR... you never know if pilots will be successful and adopted, or fail and be set aside though - I certainly hope it was successful!

I had the privilege of using GMS (the system being referenced) at Chestnut Hill and it was brilliant for the inspectors. Never had to go back to the inspection station, all paperwork, signature, status updates, notes and pictures could be done on the tablet. Team had to go to inspection station for weighing, but that's it. Individual inspectors could also be assigned to a team from the inspection desk and when they looked at the pit map on their tablet, they would see the teams they were assigned to.

I'm pushing hard to get this implemented out here in SoCal for inspectors.

Same system also supported judges in much the same way. I used it as Match Observer at Chestnut Hill and loved the ability to get up and roam while observing matches.


And now back to the original topic of the thread....

GMS would be perfect for doing reinspections in the queue line, on the field, in the pit and having a record of the reinspection.

[Chris is me]

I don't know if the paperwork has to be that extreme. I could see a few lines at the bottom of the Inspection Checklist - Reinspection Date / Time, Changes Made, Inspector Signature. Just have 4 sets of those 3 fields at the bottom of forms to know a robot has been reinspected. The Changes Made field will clear up issues like these where it wasn't obvious to some if the change was included in a particular reinspection.

I'd like to commend Frank for continuing to comment on these difficult circumstances, even when he can't give news that satisfies everyone. His maturity and gracious professionalism continue to inspire.

[Brandon_L]

Originally Posted by Ben Martin

Funny that you should mention this--the inspectors at Springside-Chestnut Hill and MAR Champs were using tablets with some sort of inspection app. We weren't given any forms to sign, just a sticker when we were done. There were a bunch of features, including a nice diagram of all the teams on a pit map and where they stood in the inspection process.

Maybe they were piloting something? Really not sure.

Yes, it is a pilot program in MAR. From what I understand the guys at FIRST are watching its progress. I volunteered at bridgewater and I got to use the program for Queuing. Tablets are lent to volunteers (signed out at the beginning of the day, then signed back in before you head out). The app features Queuing, Inspection status of teams, pit maps, a Game Announcer mode where you can scroll from match to match and get info on each of the 6 teams (Name, Motto, Sponsors, Robot name, everything.) For queuing, we had a match schedule that would autoscroll to highlight the match on the field in yellow and the next two matches in green. You could tap a team to bold them, a method of 'marking' them as in queue.

A judge showed me the judges portion of the app. This section seemed like it needed the most work, but it did show promise. They had everyone fill out surveys after the event and asked for feedback. Overall, it made everyone's lives easier and saved a bunch of trees.

In the case of inspectors, it has the full inspection checklist and the inspector simply scrolls down it and answers yes/no or checks off various things. Teams start showing up with a red backround which is shown in the pit map, match schedule, pretty much everywhere. When they're fully inspected they turn green. Queuers were told if a team showed up to queue with anything but a green background to grab an inspector. There were some other colors as well, such as yellow and pink. I'm not entirely sure what the significance of those were, but I'm sure someone that was an inspector could answer.

[George1902]

Attached is the form used at South Florida to track robot changes and reinspections.

Hopefully this ends any of the nonsense talk about willful malfeasance. These are all three Chairman's Award teams that we all should be emulating. They are among the nicest, kindest, and fun people you'll get to meet in FIRST.

Bacon and CRyptonite: Best of luck in St. Louis!

Pink: Champs won't be the same without you guys. But we'll try to represent Florida proudly, as you all have done the last 16 years.

[Orion.DeYoe]

To be completely honest I think the way FIRST (and Frank) handled this problem is unbelievable.
First of all, the "reinspection process" is NOT well-defined in the manual and as such a team has no way of knowing the magnitude of change that requires reinspection (do we need to get an inspector every time we change tread on the wheels?). Team's should not be made to suffer for FIRST's inability and refusal to define many rules properly. A team would have to be obviously and purposefully cheating before I would advocate a ruling like this.
Second of all, the media got involved. Every one of us here in the 21st century should know the kind of damage that the media can do to an organization/individual's reputation. We should also be aware that a ruined reputation for a robotics team will interfere with it's ability to gain and retain sponsors as well as their ability to inspire further generations to become involved with STEM (which, may I remind you, is FIRST's entire mission).
I think that the way FIRST handled the repercussions of this decision were very inadequate. FIRST needs to write a press release to defend the reputation of these teams as well as writing each of their sponsors to explain the situation. It is FIRST's responsibility to make sure that the damage to a few teams' reputation doesn't cause these teams permanent harm as well a to prevent the bad reputation to spread to other teams and the organization as a whole.

[Steven Donow]

Originally Posted by Orion.DeYoe

Second of all, the media got involved. Every one of us here in the 21st century should know the kind of damage that the media can do to an organization/individual's reputation. We should also be aware that a ruined reputation for a robotics team will interfere with it's ability to gain and retain sponsors as well as their ability to inspire further generations to become involved with STEM (which, may I remind you, is FIRST's entire mission)
I think that the way FIRST handld the repercussions of this decision were very inadequate. FIRST needs to write a press release to defend the reputation of these teams as well as writing each of their sponsors to explain the situation. It is FIRST's responsibility to make sure that the damage to a few teams' reputation doesn't cause these teams permanent harm as well a to prevent the bad reputation to spread to other teams and the organization as a whole.

Media getting involved is nothing FIRST is liable for...heck, I didn't even know about it until the blog post, FIRST probably didn't know about it until recently, so its not like it was a CNN headline

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Steven Donow

Media getting involved is nothing FIRST is liable for...heck, I didn't even know about it until the blog post, FIRST probably didn't know about it until recently, so its not like it was a CNN headline

I don't think us as outside observers can really adequately judge how local team reputation is affected by local media. Of course you hadn't heard of it, you live in Boston. All it takes is one misunderstood Google search and perhaps a sponsor would look elsewhere for a team to support.

[Abhishek R]

Originally Posted by Steven Donow

Media getting involved is nothing FIRST is liable for...heck, I didn't even know about it until the blog post, FIRST probably didn't know about it until recently, so its not like it was a CNN headline

It was a local media organization, so you would not have heard of it. Does that mean it's OK, just because it wasn't a large headline across FIRST? The image painted of 233 was very negative. I saw a slideshow that had photos of Pink's members doing various things at the competition from repairs in the pit to playing matches with the caption at the bottom of every slide along the lines of "The team was disqualified from the competition for not following the rules." Just because you didn't know about it does not mean no one was affected.

EDIT: I was typing this as Chris made his post. Exactly my point.

[Steven Donow]

Originally Posted by Abhishek R

It was a local media organization, so you would not have heard of it. Does that mean it's OK, just because it wasn't a large headline across FIRST? The image painted of 233 was very negative. I saw a slideshow that had photos of Pink's members doing various things at the competition from repairs in the pit to playing matches with the caption at the bottom of every slide along the lines of "The team was disqualified from the competition for not following the rules." Just because you didn't know about it does not mean no one was affected.

EDIT: I was typing this as Chris made his post. Exactly my point.

I wasn't saying this as a criticism towards the general complaint/idea of how this came across in the media; I was saying it in response to the post I quoted which came across as blaming FIRST for the media response.

[RunawayEngineer]

Originally Posted by Abhishek R

It was a local media organization, so you would not have heard of it. Does that mean it's OK, just because it wasn't a large headline across FIRST? The image painted of 233 was very negative. I saw a slideshow that had photos of Pink's members doing various things at the competition from repairs in the pit to playing matches with the caption at the bottom of every slide along the lines of "The team was disqualified from the competition for not following the rules." Just because you didn't know about it does not mean no one was affected.

EDIT: I was typing this as Chris made his post. Exactly my point.

Do you know where that slideshow is? I was only able to find a Florida Today Article about the regional, which is remains positive towards the Pink Team.

Apparently Florida Today follows the Pink Team on occasion. They've done a good job of reaching out to the media - back in 2007 when I was on the team, the only reporter we could get to talk to us was a freelance writer who was related to one of our members.

Some quick Google searches didn't show anything else that mentioned the incident on the first page, so I don't think that this will be a permanent stain for any of the teams.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Orion.DeYoe

Second of all, the media got involved. Every one of us here in the 21st century should know the kind of damage that the media can do to an organization/individual's reputation. We should also be aware that a ruined reputation for a robotics team will interfere with it's ability to gain and retain sponsors as well as their ability to inspire further generations to become involved with STEM (which, may I remind you, is FIRST's entire mission).
I think that the way FIRST handled the repercussions of this decision were very inadequate. FIRST needs to write a press release to defend the reputation of these teams as well as writing each of their sponsors to explain the situation. It is FIRST's responsibility to make sure that the damage to a few teams' reputation doesn't cause these teams permanent harm as well a to prevent the bad reputation to spread to other teams and the organization as a whole.

Hmm, I don't like a call a ref made, I'ma go whine to my local paper. Do you honestly believe I couldn't spin the facts in a way that could get a sympathetic story in some paper? Every reporter loves a story of a big group negatively impacting children. That sells papers. So, now does FIRST have to address this issue?

No.

Besides, did FIRST do anything when people on here attack other teams and accuse them of cheating? Or when students are being harassed? Or heck, when volunteers are being harassed? No. They haven't. They've left us out on our own in the past, I don't see why that would change now.

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by Orion.DeYoe

First of all, the "reinspection process" is NOT well-defined in the manual and as such a team has no way of knowing the magnitude of change that requires reinspection (do we need to get an inspector every time we change tread on the wheels?). Team's should not be made to suffer for FIRST's inability and refusal to define many rules properly. A team would have to be obviously and purposefully cheating before I would advocate a ruling like this.

T10

If a ROBOT is modified after it has passed Inspection, other than modifications described in T8, that ROBOT must be re-Inspected.

How is that not well defined? ANY change to the robot, except those expressly permitted per T8, requires a reinspection. The problem is teams simply don't follow this rule. They make small changes and think "nah, that doesn't need reinspection"... and there's usually no way for the inspectors to catch on, except when we do the mandatory reinspection for eliminations. Ever wonder why we reweigh the robots, and put our foot on the scale while we do it? It's to get teams to stop and think and tell us what actually changed on their robot, because we know they made changes they didn't tell us about. You wouldn't believe the number of times I've had a team walk up, say "we didn't change anything!" and then when their robot is off by 2 lbs they start saying "well, we took this off here, and we replaced this, and we added supports for this..."

And yes, reinspections should include replacing tread on wheels - that is the main part of the robot that interacts with the carpet, and inspectors need to be able to verify that the alteration does not risk significant damage to the carpet. Specifically, if you're attaching it with a pop-rivets, as many teams do, I need to be able to see that the new pop-rivets were installed properly and won't cause an issue. The same could be said of zip ties (where is the head of the zip tie located?) or gluing (are any exposed rims of the wheels properly accounted for? Is the glue dry so it would get all over the field?) or any other attachment method you can think of.

These reinspections are not cursory, they are not lighter or less rigorous than the initial inspection. The only difference is the scope - we don't have to worry about the entire robot any more, just the small area where the change was made.

[FrankJ]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

How is that not well defined? ANY change to the robot, except those expressly permitted per T8, requires a reinspection. The problem is teams simply don't follow this rule. ...snip..

And yes, reinspections should include replacing tread on wheels - that is the main part of the robot that interacts with the carpet, ...snip...

These reinspections are not cursory, they are not lighter or less rigorous than the initial inspection. The only difference is the scope - we don't have to worry about the entire robot any more, just the small area where the change was made.

What is not well defined is exactly what is an "re-inspection" & how it gets documented. T8 speaks to modification not repairs. Just when a repair becomes a modification is a judgement call not all defined by the rules. If you expect robots to be reinspected after every repair, then the process is fundamentally flawed & you can't fault teams for not following it a 100%. You are also going to need a lot more inspectors. The other Frank says the process is going to get some attention. I am expecting positive changes.

Removing a mechanism present during the original inspection does not trigger a need for re inspection per T8. Adding the ballast to compensate would require reinspection. As a side note reinstalling the mechanism if the ballast + mechanism exceeded the allowed robot weight would probably be against the rules.

[sanddrag]

I missed it? What exactly was the issue with the one robot? Were they out of compliance with robot construction rules, or overweight or something?