Withholding Allowance

[Dave McLaughlin]

Originally Posted by marshall

It was left unbagged. We have two district events we are still preparing for.

Originally Posted by Brandon Holley

I would just like to point out - and @marshall please correct me if I'm misinterpreting your thought process...

But due to Palmetto being a week 0.5, there was absolutely no incentive to NOT bag the practice robot. They were not going to have any time to work on it as they were traveling and heading to the event anyway.

Had their first event been a week 1 or a week 2 - I'm wondering if you would have made the same decision?

-Brando

This was my train of thought as well. It seems like 900 were able to gain a clear competitive advantage here by leveraging the fact that they were playing within a few days of bag day.

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by Dave McLaughlin

This was my train of thought as well. It seems like 900 were able to gain a clear competitive advantage here by leveraging the fact that they were playing within a few days of bag day.

I'd say that as someone using it, the out of district system is the biggest cheat code sanctioned by FRC and pretty damning proof that the current system is farcical. If we qualify through to championships we can potentially field a machine over 100% from when we bagged it and have 24 hours of shop time to put it together if we were an IN/GA/NC team (we'll get 18)

[FrankJ]

Originally Posted by Dave McLaughlin

This was my train of thought as well. It seems like 900 were able to gain a clear competitive advantage here by leveraging the fact that they were playing within a few days of bag day.

The other 63 teams they were competing against weren't playing within a few days of bag day?

[Dave McLaughlin]

Originally Posted by FrankJ

The other 63 teams they were competing against weren't playing within a few days of bag day?

Did the other 63 teams bring two functional robots to the event and continue to develop and modify one while the other was competing?

[Nate Laverdure]

Originally Posted by Dave McLaughlin

Did the other 63 teams bring two functional robots to the event and continue to develop and modify one while the other was competing?

Seems that they did not. Shame on them!

[BigRickT]

They found a loophole and exploited it... I will certainly not say that this was illegal. However, I certainly think this is against the spirit of what FIRST intended. Especially if parts were transitioned from the practice bot to the competition bot.

[FrankJ]

One of the things I like best about the FRC competition is watching the teams look around to see what works and trying to better their robots during the heat of competition. I think it is pretty common to see the better teams build complete mechanisms off the robot during the competition and add them as the rules allow. Maybe we need to eliminate bag & tag. Maybe we need to split FRC up into different divisions or classes. I would hate to see the rules get so restrictive that you only can run the one robot you brought in the bag without modification.

[Dave McLaughlin]

Originally Posted by Nate Laverdure

Seems that they did not. Shame on them!

Prior to bag day, there is little that FIRST does to mitigate the uneven playing field that is FRC. There are always teams that, at the current juncture, are more fortunate in terms of funding, resources, experience... etc. However, at competition, it is my opinion that this glaring disparity is mitigated to an acceptable extent. What you did before bag day (out of bag windows included for district teams) is what you get take out of the bag when you arrive at competition. That is the same for every team. For the teams that build 2 practice robots, to the teams that work until 11:59 on bag day to complete a single robot.

While legal, I think that what 900 has done has provided us a peak through the looking glass. In the arms race that to a large extent is FRC, the disparity between teams will only continue to grow if events like this are allowed to continue. Many teams in FRC build practice robots, and for good reason. But the vast majority, apparently 900 excluded, most likely operate on the understanding that the practice robot will remain a test-bed that stays at home while the competition robot goes away to play.

I commend 900 for identifying a way to gain a competitive advantage, however I am of the opinion that this one in particular pushes the bounds of being within the spirit of the rules.

[marshall]

Originally Posted by Dave McLaughlin

But the vast majority, apparently 900 excluded, most likely operate on the understanding that the practice robot will remain a test-bed that stays at home while the competition robot goes away to play.

Not true! There were at least 3 that I saw sitting in trailers at load-in for Palmetto and I know the same is true for the Championship.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Dave McLaughlin

Prior to bag day, there is little that FIRST does to mitigate the uneven playing field that is FRC. There are always teams that, at the current juncture, are more fortunate in terms of funding, resources, experience... etc. However, at competition, it is my opinion that this glaring disparity is mitigated to an acceptable extent. What you did before bag day (out of bag windows included for district teams) is what you get take out of the bag when you arrive at competition. That is the same for every team. For the teams that build 2 practice robots, to the teams that work until 11:59 on bag day to complete a single robot.

While legal, I think that what 900 has done has provided us a peak through the looking glass. In the arms race that to a large extent is FRC, the disparity between teams will only continue to grow if events like this are allowed to continue. Many teams in FRC build practice robots, and for good reason. But the vast majority, apparently 900 excluded, most likely operate on the understanding that the practice robot will remain a test-bed that stays at home while the competition robot goes away to play.

I guess where I'm lost here is that I don't understand what contradiction of the spirit of the rule 900 did here? They finished everything before Bag Day, and put a robot plus a bunch of parts in bags. The parts were assembled to look like a robot - is that what the problem was? If it was just a huge garbage bag of spare assemblies, would it be better within the "spirit" of the rule?

If you build it within the six weeks, intend to use it at competition, and don't intend to use it before competition, you can put it in the bag. The only difference between this and a team bagging spare parts, is the number of parts involved and how they happen to be assembled. The spirit of the rule allows spare parts - does the spirit of the rule really outline what form the parts are in?

But really, bag day is ridiculous. Let's be done with this nonsense and just allow build up to and through competition already.

[Electronica1]

Originally Posted by marshall

Not true! There were at least 3 that I saw sitting in trailers at load-in for Palmetto and I know the same is true for the Championship.

Yea, and a few year ago (2014 I think), FIRST put out a rule update making that illegal. I don't 100% remember, but I think there is an equivalent rule for this year.

Edit: never-mind, miss understood that update

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Electronica1

Yea, and a few year ago (2014 I think), FIRST put out a rule update making that illegal. I don't 100% remember, but I think there is an equivalent rule for this year.

What is in your trailer isn't illegal at all - what FIRST did was make the withholding allowance defined at the beginning of the event. So you have to
"declare" what parts you'll be using and bring them in with you. Nothing against, for example, getting a completely COTS part off of a practice robot in the trailer and bringing just the COTS part into the arena after unload.

What the rule change ends up prohibiting is teams going "well I'm using 5 lbs of withholding right now, and 25 lbs when Major Mechanism A breaks on Saturday afternoon and I can just go get another one."

[Dave McLaughlin]

Originally Posted by marshall

Not true! There were at least 3 that I saw sitting in trailers at load-in for Palmetto and I know the same is true for the Championship.

Thank you for clarifying, could you please elaborate as to if these robots were bagged or un-bagged? If they were un-bagged, and were brought to the event for what I assume would be the purpose of spare parts, when would the 30 lbs. for withholding come into play?

[PayneTrain]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

What is in your trailer isn't illegal at all - what FIRST did was make the withholding allowance defined at the beginning of the event. So you have to
"declare" what parts you'll be using and bring them in with you. Nothing against, for example, getting a completely COTS part off of a practice robot in the trailer and bringing just the COTS part into the arena after unload.

What the rule change ends up prohibiting is teams going "well I'm using 5 lbs of withholding right now, and 25 lbs when Major Mechanism A breaks on Saturday afternoon and I can just go get another one."

I think the blue box that year was very specific about the trailer practice but if someone is going to bust your chops for grabbing a Talon off your pbot they probably need to be checked in somewhere.

[ASmith1675]

The question here, as I see it comes down to the following:

Is it more of advantage to bag your practice bot and have a bunch of spare parts at a competition, or is it a bigger advantage to be able to drive and test with your practice bot?

I think its pretty easy to make the argument that it is a bigger advantage to use a practice bot as a way to allow drivers to practice and programmers to tune in code after bag day. If this was not the case, we would've seen these a lot more of these robots bagged, and used exactly as they were in Palmetto, as assembled spare parts.

A week 0.5 event causes this assumption to be thrown out, as there is no time to either practice or code with the practice bot after bag day, so there is literally NO reason to not throw it in a bag to use as "spare parts". This advantage only comes up because of the inherent disadvantage of participating in a regional so close to bag day.