"Spare Parts" Rules Are Broken

[rees2001]

I watched this exact thing happen last year at The Buckeye Regional. A team brought in their "practice" robot and I watched all day as they systematically took parts off it and put them onto their competition robot. They ended up going on to the finals I believe. It didn't seem fair. I see that team went to GLR this year, I hope they didn't do the same thing again.

This year, as always, we will be brinning a supply of backup parts, but they are identical to the ones found on our robot and hopefully won't be needed. That isn't unfair, it just smart. The only thing we put in our crate was the robot. We even took off the practice signs, & yes we made new ones. The team number is a little bigger on the new ones.

You just have to remember why you are doing this. Winning is great, but if you can teach the kids a good lesson, that is so much better. I don't think this team you and/or I am talking about is teaching a very good lesson.

[Natchez]

As soon as we were told we were in violation of the rules, we removed the practice robot from the building.

This is what I love about the engineering community. Team 830 is part of the solution and not part of the problem!!! We will all make mistakes; it is what we do after our mistakes that defines our character. Thanks for the explanation Donald.

[Don Wright]

Please see my post here:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...076#post236076

Again, I'm sorry.

[dlavery]

This same thing happened at St Louis. The fact that this happened at least twice (maybe more?) is a strong indication that FIRST will have to make the prohibitions against this practice absolutely clear and unambiguous. This may be intuitively obvious to some teams, but not others, so here we are...

-dave

[Jeff Waegelin]

I'd like to commend Mr. Wright for his full disclosure of what went on with his team's practice robot at GLR. It takes courage to admit you did something wrong, and not just deny everything flat-out. Thank you for telling us the full story.

[MikeDubreuil]

Originally Posted by Jeff Waegelin

I'd like to commend Mr. Wright for his full disclosure of what went on with his team's practice robot at GLR. It takes courage to admit you did something wrong, and not just deny everything flat-out. Thank you for telling us the full story.

It was definately the right thing to do 830, your apology has been accepted by me Mr. Wright.
Even though 830 did violate the rules I don't think their violation is nearly as extreme as the other teams who were swapping upgraded components as Matt Adams has described. I want to hear more on that subject. I don't think the CD community will be nearly as accepting of that type of conduct.

[R2K2D2]

This may have been a problem at GLR, but I can say that I did not see 830 participate in anything illegal with the spare parts. I was in the pits most of the competition, and they were our put neighbors. Any team that had a spare bot could have made the same mistake they did, but they took care of the problem right away once they found out what it was. I NEVER saw their practice bot "lightened up" from it losing parts. They played fairly and in the spirit of the game, and had a great robot.

This thread was in no way started to "slam" team 830, because everyone on our team knows that they competed graciously. Good luck to ya guys at Grand Rapids, kick some robot~!

[NoRemorse]

Just for the record, the team i was speaking of DID use their spare for more than just parts, and MORE IMPORTANTLY was not 830, I too commend them for thier apology, and eagerness to comply to the rules when confronted

[Joe Johnson]

I inspected team 830. It was not until late in the day Thursday that I realized that they were running their extra robot -- to be honest, I saw at least one other team with their spare robot there -- I also saw that team asking if they could run their spare robot on Th -- they were told no.

Here is how I would have dealt with it at that point. I knew 3 things,
#1 the other team had been told no.
#2 they made no secret of their second robot and
#3 they had not been told to escort their robot to the door.

So at that point, knowing what I knew about the other situation, I just decided to ignore it.

I guess things later blew up a bit.

I have not liked this rule from the beginning but I guess if it is here to stay so be it. We need to get a little more legal to make it fair (and clear).

Joe J.

[Matt Adams]

I'd just like to clear the air that my original post had nothing to do with team 830's actions... and though they made great strides in improving their robot over the course of the competition, I didn't witness anything that had me second guessing their practices or gracious professionalism.

Matt

[kacz100]

Originally Posted by FIRST rule R09

During the six week period following Kickoff: You may fabricate spare parts for replacement
purposes of items on your robot as long as they are exact replacements for parts on the robot you
shipped to the event. They must be brought to the event in a completely disassembled state as
individual components (no bolt-on assemblies).

I personally disagree with this rule in some senses. Our team created 4 tracks for our robot incase we broke or something horrible happened. So this rule would state that we would have to take apart our 2 spare tracks?
Our 1 track
I don't know about you but that just isn't going to happen it took DAYS to put together and if we broke our track match 1 we would they have a robot that didn't work and we could go home on thursday. The rules are stated for someone to CHANGE a complete arm, drive system, or any other part (IMHO); replacement parts should not be a problem. If 1 team can make a second robot in 6 weeks whats the problem with them using it for parts on the robot they shipped? Some things that are created in the 6 weeks just cannot be remade to work in a couple hours.

Well thats my 2cents on this matter

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by kacz100

I personally disagree with this rule in some senses. Our team created 4 tracks for our robot incase we broke or something horrible happened. So this rule would state that we would have to take apart our 2 spare tracks?

If you created the spare tracks during the 6 week build season, then you may ship them with the robot and use them as is. However, if they were made after the 6 week build season, then you must remake them from raw materials at the competition.

[kacz100]

Originally Posted by Joe Ross

If you created the spare tracks during the 6 week build season, then you may ship them with the robot and use them as is. However, if they were made after the 6 week build season, then you must remake them from raw materials at the competition.

Because of a heavy crate we couldn't ship anything but our robot. Yes you are correct we could have put them in the crate.

[Don Wright]

Thanks to everyone for the support and understanding of the issues.

[dddriveman]

I think that this was a very informative thread. I also think that there was a little too much finger pointing, name calling, and crying. WE are all on a F.I.R.S.T. team for a reason. Alot of people are getting blind sited by what our primary goal is. I think that in the future we should continue to disscuss these issues but should should be a more carefull woth the accusations that we throw around. Many people were blaming this whole situation on one or two teams when actually it was a simple miss-understanding. We have all done it cut them a break PLEASE. I'm sure that they feel bad enough.