Something FRC GDC could learn from VRC GDC

[Daniel_LaFleur]

Originally Posted by EricH

One of my favorite rules in an engineering competition (this one courtesy of SAE Aero Design) is something to the effect of: "Violations of the spirit of a rule are counted as violations of the rule."

In FRC, it is occasionally possible to have a play, strategy, or design that is within the letter of the rules, but not the spirit of the rules. Be interesting to see what would happen if the above were put in play in FRC...

One persons innovative approach is another persons 'violation of the spirit of the rule'.

Sorry, I prefer my rules to be explicit, and not interpreted.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Daniel_LaFleur

One persons innovative approach is another persons 'violation of the spirit of the rule'.

Sorry, I prefer my rules to be explicit, and not interpreted.

To be fair, the rules were pretty clear (another thing certain folks need to work on), and if there was a question of intent/spirit, you asked the rules committee directly (and knew who they were!) and publicly, and got the same type of response back, usually within a day or so unless it was a particularly complicated one or you were being difficult. None of this "We cannot perform design reviews" non-answer (or "See the definition of possession"--which is what I just asked about!).

[DampRobot]

Originally Posted by EricH

To be fair, the rules were pretty clear (another thing certain folks need to work on), and if there was a question of intent/spirit, you asked the rules committee directly (and knew who they were!) and publicly, and got the same type of response back, usually within a day or so unless it was a particularly complicated one or you were being difficult. None of this "We cannot perform design reviews" non-answer (or "See the definition of possession"--which is what I just asked about!).

I really don't understand why the GDC still does this... It's ridiculous for a strategy/design you put a ton of work into to be ruled illegal at your first competition because no one bothered to clarify what the rule actually meant. And why the heck can't they say if a design as described is illegal or not? If someone's bothering to ask, it's probably because the rules aren't clear.

I get that FIRST doesn't want to answer questions in the Q and A that could be answered by just reading the manual (like we do on CD), but why not actually clarify what's said in the manual, rather than referring us to what we had a question about?

[apalrd]

Originally Posted by EricH

To be fair, the rules were pretty clear (another thing certain folks need to work on), and if there was a question of intent/spirit, you asked the rules committee directly (and knew who they were!) and publicly, and got the same type of response back, usually within a day or so unless it was a particularly complicated one or you were being difficult. None of this "We cannot perform design reviews" non-answer (or "See the definition of possession"--which is what I just asked about!).

I am not familiar with the SAE Aero series, but in Formula SAE, it is required for teams to submit a detailed analysis of their chassis design for safety and rules compliance review months before the competition. When the team arrives at competition, they just need to show the inspectors their approved SES and the inspectors only have to verify that the chassis is built to the SES for the team to pass the chassis safety section of the rules, and the team knows months ahead of time that their design will pass inspection (if they build it correctly). We are also encouraged to submit designs (including CAD images) when asking rules questions, when relevant, as we frequently have questions regarding the legality of a questionable design and it's just easier to directly ask if the design is legal and note which rules we are concerned with.