Team update 3

[Doug Frisk]

Originally Posted by qscgy

If they wanted to settle the Velcro controversy, I would think that they would just say whether it's allowed or not. This just creates more questions, and it does seem like the point of the game is to use a rope, not a rope with Velcro on it.

I think they need to go Johnnie Cochran on this question.

"If the rope won't fray, the bot can't play!"

If what you present as rope can be frayed apart at the end by the inspector into individual strands or fibers it's a rope. If it's woven, you should be able to pick at the end and unweave it. If it's twisted, you should be able to untwist it. If sewn, you should be able to pull the sewn threads. If it's tied, you should be able to untie it.

Every single method of holding the rope together as defined in the rules can be frayed apart.

[Robomarfa]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

They don't want to say "Velcro is legal" because surely there are things sold as Velcro that don't meet the other rules for a legal rope,

Please kindly elaborate with examples of things you consider legal Velcro(R) and illegal Velcro(R) as this will help my understanding and interpretation of a vague rule.

[Mike Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Robomarfa

I think it is a silly discussion, because velcro is obviously not a rope, and I would never let my team take that questionable and easy route. Still, I'd like to know if teams are allowed to use velcro as that puts pure rope teams at a disadvantage.

Rope is defined in the manual pretty clearly now and a sew on Velcro strap is a rope according to the definition. I'm not sure where the idea of pure rope came from but if you feel the need to make the challenge harder for your students than for the teams they're competing against that is your choice.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Robomarfa

Please kindly elaborate with examples of things you consider legal Velcro(R) and illegal Velcro(R) as this will help my understanding and interpretation of a vague rule.

An obvious example of an illegal Velcro rope would be a strip of Velcro more than an inch wide.

An obvious example of a legal Velcro rope would be a loop-side velcro strap where the loops are woven into the strap.

Lots of range in between. Merely "being Velcro" doesn't make a rope illegal - it has to follow all of the other rules though.

[Cal578]

Originally Posted by Robomarfa

Please kindly elaborate with examples of things you consider legal Velcro(R) and illegal Velcro(R) as this will help my understanding and interpretation of a vague rule.

Many Velcro and velcro-ish products come with a plastic backing. A flat strip of plastic is not a fiber, is not thread-like, and so (IMO) wouldn't pass inspection. If you're going to make your Rope out of anything velcro-ish, look carefully at all the materials in it.

[Cothron Theiss]

I personally wish they'd just left the Velcro can of worms closed, and made all Velcro illegal from the start. But they didn't, so now it's legal to use some forms of Velcro on a rope, and we can be sure that some teams will. But I'm not convinced it's the best solution. I imagine we'll see some great climbing teams that use Velcro, and I imagine we'll see even more that don't.

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

An obvious example of an illegal Velcro rope would be a strip of Velcro more than an inch wide.

An obvious example of a legal Velcro rope would be a loop-side velcro strap where the loops are woven into the strap.

Lots of range in between. Merely "being Velcro" doesn't make a rope illegal - it has to follow all of the other rules though.

Besides, if they say "Velcro is legal" then what about hook-and-loop?

I'm really quite excited to see what teams come up with with the doors blasted wide open on the rope rules. There are a lot of valid directions to go, some of them involving Velcro/HAL, some not.

[engunneer]

Originally Posted by Cothron Theiss

I personally wish they'd just left the Velcro can of worms closed, and made all Velcro illegal from the start. But they didn't, so now it's legal to use some forms of Velcro on a rope, and we can be sure that some teams will. But I'm not convinced it's the best solution. I imagine we'll see some great climbing teams that use Velcro, and I imagine we'll see even more that don't.

I just don't see how they could have outlawed it even with the kickoff rules. as long as the material was constructed properly (no adhesive, etc.), then it would have been legal. I don't think anything has actually changed here, just been clarified (SEWN is clearer, and might be the only change)

[TJP123]

Originally Posted by mypie4050

This wasn't actually a change to the game manual - It already stated that teams would be sorted by avg ranking points this year. The update clarified the non-influence of surrogate matches towards the RP avg.

Ah. Good catch.

[bobbysq]

Originally Posted by engunneer

I just don't see how they could have outlawed it even with the kickoff rules. as long as the material was constructed properly (no adhesive, etc.), then it would have been legal. I don't think anything has actually changed here, just been clarified (SEWN is clearer, and might be the only change)

They could have put in the game manual "No hook and loop material is allowed", although that would seemingly exclude mechanisms using a loop on their rope and a hook on their robot to grab it. I'm guessing if they wanted it banned, they would have done it already since there's no way a test team didn't think of it.

[efoote868]

Originally Posted by engunneer

SEWN is clearer, and might be the only change

That makes it so teams don't have to argue the semantics of how their "rope" came to be.

If the GDC wanted to avoid all the rope drama, they would've supplied a standard chain and provided a part number of it.

[Nuttyman54]

Originally Posted by bobbysq

They could have put in the game manual "No hook and loop material is allowed", although that would seemingly exclude mechanisms using a loop on their rope and a hook on their robot to grab it. I'm guessing if they wanted it banned, they would have done it already since there's no way a test team didn't think of it.

FIRST is learning from the past.

There are enough fuzzy-ish, non-"velcro" or "hook-and-loop" type materials out there that it would have created another arms race like Can Grabbers or MiniBots. Velcro-style rope climbers are one of the easiest and simplest solutions, and the top teams would dedicate lots of resources to finding the right legal alternative. FIRST had the choice of going down the rabbit hole of trying to regulate what is and isn't velcro for the purposes of being a ROPE, or they could make velcro-style ropes legal, let all teams take the easier route and end up with more robots climbing which is good for everyone.

As mentioned above, they don't want to put in the manual "Velcro is legal" because that opens up the door to conflict with the other rope rules (bumper rules are notorious for being hard to dissect because certain separate rules together imply a requirement, and all must be simultaneously met).

For those of you who are complaining that it's not really rope climbing anymore. We are not tasked with climbing a "rope". We are tasked with climbing a ROPE as defined in the manual. The game challenge is an engineering challenge, with specifications. We're being told what ROPE is.