Cheesecake Factory

[RoboDawg]

Something I saw at the 2015 Championship has been bothering me and I would like some feedback from the CD community. I saw a HOF team set up what amounted to the equivalent of a production line outside of their allotted pit area. The area covered at least two normal pit stalls worth of real estate. They worked on their robot and built, what I assume, was cheesecake for their alliance.

I understand the cheesecake phenomena and my personal opinions are not favorable. But the current rules do not seem to exclude or eliminate its use. My issue is with the violation of a rule (pit sprawl) that was brought to the attention of various FIRST personnel. I don't know if anything came of this.

There are multiple reasons for limits on a teams pit size. The limits on team members in a pit constrains the amount of work a team can do. When they sprawl, large teams have more manpower to do work in a short period of time. This puts small teams at a disadvantage.

Due to limitations of my mobility for this Championship I could not get around to all the divisions. Was the incident I witnessed just one or did other people see this kind of behavior? I know that for a lot of people winning on Einstein is the penultimate. Does this desire excuse rule violations?

[magnets]

Here's the relevant rule (T12):

During the event, from load-in on the first day to load-out on the final day, Teams may only produce FABRICATED ITEMS in the
pit areas or provided machine shops, as defined in the Administrative Manual, Section 4.8: The Pit, and per R17 in Section 4.6:
Material Utilization.

Every year there are a certain set of the rules that you can ignore and get away with. I have yet to discover how teams can determine which rules can be ignored and which rules must be followed, but after attending many championships, it's safe to say that you can just ignore this one, unless, of course, you're above cheating in a high school robotics competition...
/rant

All sarcasm aside, you bring up a reasonable point. I saw one team working on some device outside their pit, and a man on a golf cart drove up to them and starting telling them they couldn't work outside their pit. After the team's initial reaction of terror, the guy said he was joking. Why bother putting something in the manual that looks like a rule if event staff are going to laugh at it and ignore it? It's all very confusing...

[RoboChair]

During the event, from load-in on the first day to load-out on the final day, Teams may only produce FABRICATED ITEMS in the
pit areas or provided machine shops, as defined in the Administrative Manual, Section 4.8: The Pit, and per R17 in Section 4.6:
Material Utilization.

It does not specify YOUR pit, it specifies the pit areas.

[Rman1923]

Personally, I think that it is safer to have many people working on the robot in a bigger area. If two teams are working on one robot in a ten by ten square, my first reaction / concern is that someone will get hurt. Although it does bend a rule, I think in this case it is for the better (especially in champs because there actually is space for an alliance to do this safely)

[RoboDawg]

4.8.2.3 Space Regulations
Each team is allotted approximately the same amount of workspace at an event, usually about 10’ x 10’ x 10’; however, the size
will vary from event to event, and in many cases the space is smaller. Be sure your equipment will fit in a space smaller than those
dimensions. In all cases, the height cannot exceed 10’. This includes the height of signs, flags, banners, etc.
Keep your equipment and team members within your assigned area and do not “grow” into the aisle or undesignated space. If
your team is too large to fit into the allotted space, encourage your team to leave the area to scout other teams and/or to watch the
matches. We ask that you please do not add to your space by setting up in another area.

[GeeTwo]

The rules should be more explicitly limited to each team's pit, not merely the "pit area", which could easily be construed as including aisles and the boxes in the Jones Dome which were unassigned due to structural columns. On the other hand, one of our team members worked on another team's robot for several hours in their pit at Bayou, and we don't want to exclude this sort of classic GP behavior. The rule should probably read something like this:

During the event, from load-in on the first day to load-out on the final day, Teams may only produce FABRICATED ITEMS in their own assigned pit area, in the assigned pit area of the target robot for the FABRICATED ITEM, or in the provided machine shops, as defined in the Administrative Manual.

This would allow classic GP assists to new teams, as well as reasonable cheesecaking activity.