Competing in a Regional Soon ? - Watch out

[Ginger Power]

Originally Posted by de_

Make sure you have read and understood team update 14.

Today our robot was dead during part or all of 6 out of 8 matches even though it was completely mechanically functional. Twice it was caused by opponent teams robot smashing into the our wall in autonomous causing our laptop to blue screen and reboot and the second time crash on the floor and even after a reboot of the laptop, the robot autostart failed. Another team I am told had one or both of a laptop and tablet destroyed in a similar situation today. No penalty or consequences what so ever to the robots that caused it.

I think FIRST needs to immediately implement one or more of the following:

1) If a robot in autonomous crashes so out of control hard into the wall causing a driver station of the teams behind wall are immediately effected (ie their robot goes dead. a) the offending team should get no score for the match and or b) better still the match is immediately restarted.

2) Teams should be allowed to hold their laptop during autonomous so as to protect them.

All laptops are expensive fragile electronics. Velcroing them so they can be smashed about without consequence is ridiculous.

Dave Edwards
Mentor - Runnymede Robotics
Team 1310

We knocked a laptop off today. We apologized and made sure the teams laptop was ok. However, no penalty should be leveled against the team that knocks the laptop off, because the laptop won't fall off if you use the velcro. Simple solution: use the velcro. I think teams are also allowed to catch their laptop if it falls off (or if they're not, they should be).