Withholding Allowance

[Sparky3D]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

Rich,
...
To be clear, this does not include motors that have the wires cut and terminated, it does not include batteries that have cable attached as described in R18 exclusions.

So when the GDC and the CRI disagree, who wins? Q&A 823 seems to indicate that terminated motors must be included in your withholding allowance:

Q823 Q. R13 describes Fabricated Items that may be constructed prior to Kickoff. Exceptions A through C are also excluded from R18 Withholding Allowance. Is it the intent of the rules that the only allowable spare motors not part of R18 are COTS motors that have not been modified in any way? Can R13-D items be excluded from the Withholding Allowance?
FRC2202 on 2016-02-14
A. Yes, COTS items (motors, etc.) that have been modified from their original condition (e.g. connectors have been added) are FABRICATED ITEMS. Specific FABRICATED ITEMS are exceptions to R13, but not exceptions to R18.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Dustin,
I work for the GDC, so what they say goes. They do ask for my input and that is always a good thing. Please standby...

[Bob Steele]

I honestly think that the Answer was supposed to be:

There are no rules governing FABRICATED ITEMS that are never intended to be used on a ROBOT

IMO Any fabricated part that is intended to be used on the robot with the exceptions in R-18
A. the OPERATOR CONSOLE,
B. any ROBOT battery assemblies (as described in R5).
C. BUMPERS

are part of the 30 lb withholding limit. That is a static set of pieces.

[bluecube]

Interestingly, second robots are allowed so long as they are bagged at the same time as the first, and brought in at loading time and classed as spare parts

This is according to rulings that First made at the SC Palmetto regional, where a team did bring a second robot

You are also allowed to work on one of the robots in the pits while the other robot is on the practice field/competing

[EricH]

Originally Posted by bluecube

Interestingly, second robots are allowed so long as they are bagged at the same time as the first, and brought in at loading time and classed as spare parts

This is according to rulings that First made at the SC Palmetto regional, where a team did bring a second robot

You are also allowed to work on one of the robots in the pits while the other robot is on the practice field/competing

Unfortunately, that would be a violation of R1. ROBOT is ALWAYS singular. And almost always, it is referred to in with a definite article ("the" instead of "an" or "a").

That would be my opinion. I don't know who made that call, but I'd be interested to know their logic.

I would also be highly unsurprised to find the "only one robot" rule specifically returning; that's a rule that was around for quite a while.

[gpetilli]

Originally Posted by bluecube

Interestingly, second robots are allowed so long as they are bagged at the same time as the first, and brought in at loading time and classed as spare parts

This is according to rulings that First made at the SC Palmetto regional, where a team did bring a second robot

You are also allowed to work on one of the robots in the pits while the other robot is on the practice field/competing

Rule # ???. Perhaps if they paid a second entrance fee as a second team? Makes no sense.

[FrankJ]

While you might work on the "second robot", you couldn't compete with it without going through reinspection. Even interchanging parts might require reinspection.

[Rosiebotboss]

Originally Posted by bluecube

Interestingly, second robots are allowed so long as they are bagged at the same time as the first, and brought in at loading time and classed as spare parts

This is according to rulings that First made at the SC Palmetto regional, where a team did bring a second robot

You are also allowed to work on one of the robots in the pits while the other robot is on the practice field/competing

And you know this because ....???

[Bob Steele]

Originally Posted by bluecube

Interestingly, second robots are allowed so long as they are bagged at the same time as the first, and brought in at loading time and classed as spare parts

This is according to rulings that First made at the SC Palmetto regional, where a team did bring a second robot

You are also allowed to work on one of the robots in the pits while the other robot is on the practice field/competing

This needs some clarification... if this is true... it is a disconcerting turn of events for FIRST.

?????

[thatnameistaken]

Originally Posted by bluecube

Interestingly, second robots are allowed so long as they are bagged at the same time as the first, and brought in at loading time and classed as spare parts

This is according to rulings that First made at the SC Palmetto regional, where a team did bring a second robot

You are also allowed to work on one of the robots in the pits while the other robot is on the practice field/competing

While this seems odd, what rule, exactly, would prevent it? Only what's going out on the field has to be sub 120lbs, not everything in the bag...

[IronicDeadBird]

Welp looks like next year we will be bagging buildings.

[Bob Steele]

news flash.... this just in from FIRST..

Next year's bag limit will be changed to a limit based on volume.

The maximum volume of what you can bring in your bag will be 10' X 10' X 10' for most venues....

[marshall]

Originally Posted by bluecube

Interestingly, second robots are allowed so long as they are bagged at the same time as the first, and brought in at loading time and classed as spare parts

This is according to rulings that First made at the SC Palmetto regional, where a team did bring a second robot

You are also allowed to work on one of the robots in the pits while the other robot is on the practice field/competing

Oh boy... here I go again.

As the team with that second "robot"... I can tell you exactly what happened from my point of view (For everyone who has been wondering what 900 is up to this season, here ya go). Before I do, I want to say thank you to Jon and Frank from FIRST for working with us to clarify the rules and for being gracious professionals. Also, a massive thank you to all of the volunteers, staff, and especially the robot inspectors for the Palmetto regional. It has always been my personal favorite regional event to attend and you are the reason why.

We tagged two bags on Tuesday night before midnight (just like everyone else) and then we drove down to the event on Wednesday. It made no sense to us to leave our practice "robot" sitting in our lab when we could just bag it and use it as spare parts. We arrived at the venue for load-in and immediately explained the second bag to the inspector who checked us in (Hi Ben!).

The next morning (Thursday) we were the first team to weigh in for inspection and then we helped walk about 5 inspectors through the robot inspection process. Both the robot and spare parts were in our pit at this point and as we explained to everyone who asked about the well constructed set of spare parts, it would NEVER touch the real field without going through inspection (and it never did!!!!).

The only thing we were asked to do was to not take up space on or near the practice field with our spare parts if the ROBOT was on the real field or in the queue for the real field. Eventually someone (I don't know who) said something and the ban hammer came down hard and fast. We were told to cease operations on the spare parts and we did for about 2 hours on Thursday. At that point, Frank was on his way to the venue and we were waiting on him to arrive and give us a final ruling on our interpretation of the rules.

Frank arrived and I imagine a lively debate was had. We were eventually given the approval to go back to work with our spare parts and again the provision was that the spare parts should not be on or near the practice field if the ROBOT was on the real field.

We had a dynamics problem that was causing some pain for our driver while crossing defenses with the ROBOT. We ended up having to buy leg weights from the local Wal-Mart on Thursday night and adding them to the robot Friday morning. We went through an inspection after adding them to the ROBOT per the rules. It brought our weight up to ~117 and fixed(-ish) the dynamics problem.

Now is where it gets interesting... We had been modifying the spare parts to a lower height on Friday morning/afternoon to solve the dynamics problem more permanently. At the end of the day on Friday we made a choice to pull the shortened mechanism (shooter assembly and superstructure) from the spare parts and place it on the ROBOT after removing the full-height mechanism from the ROBOT. It was a frantic herd of Zebracorn momentum but we almost got it done completely on Friday night (Just ask 1114 how fast 900 can mobilize and they'll tell you!).

This of course ended up with us needing to be inspected again on Saturday morning. To make matters more interesting, due to the way the scheduling worked out, we happened to be in the 3rd match of the morning on Saturday so we sent our drive team to the QUEUE to wait for the ROBOT to arrive. We went through inspection again after opening ceremonies and the inspector found things that we needed to resolve and we all missed a loose wire on our radio (this impacted us in the match so we paid a real price for all of this frantic work). We were fortunate enough to just barely make the match and the inspector had to meet up with the robot near the field to apply the inspection sticker.

I'm proud of our students and mentors. Our team likes to do fun and interesting things and this regional was no different.

For one, it needs to/should be clarified about what makes a robot a ROBOT and I suspect there will be an update on it this week. If it is the control system then can a team replace their RoboRIO legally if it breaks? Can we swap them between rounds for code updates without being reinspected? If it is the drive base then can a team swap out drive bases if they dent their frame beyond repair?

For two, my proposed solution to the potential problem is simple. GET RID OF BAG AND TAG! Build season is not 6 weeks anymore and 30 pounds of parts that doesn't include COTS items is just silly.

[Jon Stratis]

First question... did you have a nice looking BOM for that second robot this time? Just kidding

Originally Posted by marshall

For one, it needs to/should be clarified about what makes a robot a ROBOT and I suspect there will be an update on it this week. If it is the control system then can a team replace their RoboRIO legally if it breaks? Can we swap them between rounds for code updates without being reinspected? If it is the drive base then can a team swap out drive bases if they dent their frame beyond repair?

For two, my proposed solution to the potential problem is simple. GET RID OF BAG AND TAG! Build season is not 6 weeks anymore and 30 pounds of parts that doesn't include COTS items is just silly.

FIRST does define a ROBOT in the glossary (emphasis mine):

an electromechanical assembly built by an FIRST Robotics Competition Team to perform specific tasks when competing in FIRST STRONGHOLD. It includes all of the basic systems required to be an active participant in the game: power, communications, control, BUMPERS and movement. The implementation must obviously follow a design approach intended to play FIRST STRONGHOLD (e.g. a box of unassembled parts placed on the FIELD or a ROBOT designed to play a different game would not satisfy this definition)

So you need everything in order for it to classify as a robot. - parts, subassemblies, and spares are not, in and of themselves, a ROBOT.

And T15-C and -D covers your questions on RoboRio swapping, I think, as the RoboRio is a COTS item:

If a ROBOT is modified after it has passed its most recent Inspection, other than modifications
listed in A through F, that ROBOT must be re-Inspected before the ROBOT is eligible to participate in a MATCH. If any of the exceptions listed below result in a significant change to the ROBOT’S size, weight, legality, or safety, the ROBOT must be re-Inspected. When in doubt, the Team should ask to be re-Inspected.
A. Addition, relocation, or removal of fasteners (e.g. cable ties, tape, and rivets)
B. Addition, relocation, or removal of labeling or marking
C. Revision of ROBOT code
D. A replacement of a COTS component with an identical COTS component
E. A replacement of a MECHANISM with an identical MECHANISM (size, weight, material)
F. Additions, removals, or reconfiguration of ROBOT with a subset of MECHANISMS already Inspected per T14

[marshall]

Originally Posted by Jon Stratis

First question... did you have a nice looking BOM for that second robot this time? Just kidding

We didn't have a BOM for the spare parts but we did have a CAW!