G10, The Dallas Disable & Crickets Chirping in Manchester

[NeonGreen]

I can understand the frustration of many folks around the vagueness and/or inconsistency in applying G10, and I think it is appropriate that we try to make sure teams are treated fairly and have a good experience.

That said, I took it as a given in the design of the game that the ability to take a robot from transportation configuration to competition ready in a short time is one of the design parameters this year. The introduction explicitly pointed out that teams would have huge latitude in what a robot looks like on the field, then immediately warned about delays and mentioned the 60-second guideline. They also explicitly clamped down on some other gray areas, such as use of webcams for a "hybrid" autonomous. I see it as inviting creativity and innovation, but attaching some risk to going outside the box.

It seemed clear to me that they were inviting a risk/reward calculation – go ahead and add conveyor belts, tethered helpers, and such, but you must be able to assemble it quickly. I guessed that their hesitation to set a hard and fast time limit was to prevent "rules lawyers" from trying to win simply by making sure other teams get penalized. Hence, I can understand the use of vague and general goals rather than specific rules.

As a mentor for a team that discarded some designs as impractical because of the time parameters, I don't want infinite laxity. I think Rich actually has outlined a pretty reasonable approach in which teams who are pushing the limits have the expectations made clear to them.

Make the team experience the top priority. Then make sure that nobody is exploiting that to gain an advantage counter to the spirit of the game and slow everything down in the process.