Leaning against vertical bar

[353Pobots]

Are you allowed to lean against the vetical bars while hanging off of the horizontal bar? I know the manual says you are not allowed to attach yourself to the bar, but says nothing about leaning or touching it.

[generalbrando]

I would say as long as you aren't supporting yourself on the bar they won't have a problem with it. It's not that the side bars are sacred. They just aren't meant to handle large side loads (notice how it's not really supported for this kind of load). So I would say go for it, but you should probably ask them on the Q+A section of the FIRST site to find out for sure.

[Adam Shapiro]

You can't use the bar for any support, including leaning against it.

[KyleGilbert45]

Under Definitions:

HANGING – A ROBOT is considered HANGING from the Pull-Up Bar if it is directly SUPPORTED by the horizontal bar and is not touching the carpet, platforms, or goals.

It says directly supported by the horizontal bar. Since FIRST said to use some common sense I would say leaning against the vertical bars would fall under the category "is not touching the carpet, platforms, or goals." But hey thats just what I think.

[Adam Shapiro]

Originally Posted by KyleGilbert45

I would say leaning against the vertical bars would fall under the category "is not touching the carpet, platforms, or goals."

Agreed.

[generalbrando]

I disagree. Supported is defined and it reads that you're supported if you would not be hanging if the supporting object were removed. Remove the side bars and you're still hanging (cough...assuming the bar would stay there. I'm thinking they were trying to clarify the fact that supporting means that the object carries the load, not something else). Anyway, I'd like to see this posted and clarified.

[Adam Shapiro]

Brando you might want to post it on the official FIRST forums to get a clarification. If you get one, we'd love to hear it!

[Jedi Padawan]

So let me get this right you basically cannot "touch the sidebar?" so if a team say had a mechanism to climb the sidebar and attatch a hook so they could use a climbing mechanism they couldn't??

[Adam Shapiro]

Originally Posted by Jedi Padawan

So let me get this right you basically cannot "touch the sidebar?" so if a team say had a mechanism to climb the sidebar and attatch a hook so they could use a climbing mechanism they couldn't??

According to what we have determined, they would be able to so long as the "climbing mechanism" didn't remain on the side bar at the end of the match.

[Solace]

i would say that you would be allowed to lean against the side bars. First most likely made the rule saying that you cannot be directly hanging on the side bars because those bars were not designed to handle the kind of side loads and strains that would happen if you were to hang from it. Also, they do not want robots to be able to cheat directly attach to the vertical poles low to the ground, picking themselves up without going to the trouble of reaching 10 feet in the air.

Basically, if you are clearly attached to the horizontal bar in some way, and the horizontal bar is bearing all of the load of your robot, you will be fine. as dean said, we are not lawyers here. although the wording is a little vague, the reasoning behind the rule is more readily apparent, and as long as you don't hurt the bar or gain an unneccessary advantage from touching the vertical poles i doubt that the refs will care.

[generalbrando]

Originally Posted by Adam Shapiro

Brando you might want to post it on the official FIRST forums to get a clarification. If you get one, we'd love to hear it!

I would, but I can't! I don't have the password. If someone else can - please do ask this. We can debate all we want, but what they say goes.

[Ken Loyd]

Let us suppose that robots A and B are hanging from the bar. At the last moment robot C attaches itself to the bar and rises off the floor pushing robots A and B against the pole. Common sense dictates that since robots A and B are hanging, they would each earn 50 points eventhough they are touching the poles. They did not use the poles in any way to achieve "hanging". If on the other hand robot D climbs up the pole (which I consider wrong), attaches itself to the bar but still stays in contact with the pole, I feel they schould not receive the points.

Ken Loyd
Team 64

[Gadget470]

imagine the field in this fasion:

|            |
|            |
|            |
'-^x^--------'
   |
   |
[ROBOT]
 '   '

______________
  PLATFORM

if the bars along the side were to be removed (in picture, hanging from the cieling) would your bot stay up?
in the case of the bot pushing the others against the bar:

|            |
|            |
|            |
'--^x^^x^----'
 /\/   |
.\ \   |
 .\/[ROBOT]
     '   '

______________
  PLATFORM

Without the bar, the pushed bot could still stay up.


Since we must try to understand the intention of the rules.. when finding all of these loopholes... determine the intention of your question.

Intention of chin-up bar rule:
To have robots hanging from horizontal bar. (when doing chin-ups do you do one hand on the chin-up and one on it's support?).

Intention of grabbing the side:
To avoid having to be hanging just from the horizontal bar.

Now.. what do you think your answer should be?
You don't need to go to Law school to be an Engineer.

[353Pobots]

The rules do say attach, im not talking about climbing, im talking about reaching the horizontal bar from the floor(on the side of it) lifting up and just leaning against the bar. If you remove the vertical bar we would still be hanging, but if we can't swing around and are leaning on the outside with our robot hanging still, does that count? That's what i was trying to ask before.

[psycho7]

As long as the robot is only using the vertical bar to keep its self from swinging and is not attached then it should be okay. But you never know when you may get a really annoying ref. (you know what I mean here)