pic: YMTC: Is 41 hanging?

[MOEmaniac]

I understand the rules completely and i respect them but it just seems like its robbing the team of the pride that it gets for getting those 50 pts. and the hang.

[KenWittlief]

this is FIRST - not T-ball :^)

[Bill Gold]

Originally Posted by MOEmaniac

I understand the rules completely and i respect them but it just seems like its robbing the team of the pride that it gets for getting those 50 pts. and the hang.

Rules are rules, not matter how dumb they may be. They should always be enforced to the fullest, or there shouldn’t be rules governing certain actions that won’t be enforced. In hockey when a player accidentally goes offsides, they don’t argue the enforcement of the rule, they just feel that they hadn’t crossed the blue line before the puck. They broke by accident and were touching the ground while in their hanging position. The rules say that this scenario doesn’t count for 50 points. It’s too bad that they broke causing them not to score 50 points, but rules are rules. Get over it and move on to your next competition and keep this kind of enforcement of rules in mind when you’re designing your robot next year.

<edit>
IMHO, if you truly completely understood and respected the rules you wouldn’t feel that they were robbed. It’s sad. It’s tough. But if it were my team who wasn’t counted as hanging because of a problem like this, I wouldn’t be upset about the enforcement of the rules one bit.
</edit>

-Bill

[jonathan lall]

If something falls off a robot, it is no longer part of that robot. Strictly according to the rules' wording (but not their spirit), this is not the case, as a robot is defined.

Anything (that has passed inspection) that a team places on the field at the beginning of a match.

On the other hand, since parts may not detach from the robot on purpose (also in the rules), it is safe to say the only reason something should detach is because of damage. Thus, the detached component becomes debris and therefore no longer part of the robot. FIRST has always played and ruled this way (as far as I can remember), and this is also dictated by common sense. If a robot loses a tiny part of its tread, that tread becomes debris. Heck, the distinction between a molecule of rubber on the ground and an arm that broke off from wear and tear cannot be made. If we say a detached component is still part of the robot and also needs to hang, then we are saying those pieces of tread and loose metal that fall off do too.

[Elgin Clock]

By the end of this competition where the 41 bot was pictured (NYC) we had a plate full of those mysterious robot parts that were left on the field.

The strangest things I saw on that plate were a screwdriver, and a broken off drill bit.

Then there was a lot of screws, pieces of the lights, a little piece of 80-20, a lot of chain links and other various items.