[moderated] You write <G34> and <G35>

[KenWittlief]

Originally Posted by JVN

We do all of the above. 3 competitions later, the drivetrain seems fine.

ok, we have our 1st volunteer

you bring your bot, Ill bring the sledgehammer and stopwatch- where would you like to conduct the testing?

we could sell tickets - the crowd will love this - maybe it will be on ESPN?

[MikeDubreuil]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

ok, we have our 1st volunteer

you bring your bot, Ill bring the sledgehammer and stopwatch- where would you like to conduct the testing?

we could sell tickets - the crowd will love this - maybe it will be on ESPN?

"Ken Wittlief vs Division by Zero" - this will definitely one up Battelebots

[Joel Glidden]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

ok, we have our 1st volunteer

you bring your bot, Ill bring the sledgehammer and stopwatch- where would you like to conduct the testing?

we could sell tickets - the crowd will love this - maybe it will be on ESPN?

Uh, Ken, you do realize they'd be driving the robot while you do this.

[JVN]

Better yet... I'll have my driver run the bot around the field and you can TRY to hit it with your sledgehammer. Good luck.

[AmyPrib]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

several people have plea'd 'build a robust bot' as the defense for leaving the rules alone the way they stand. Build a bot that can take it, and there is no reason for refs to DQ anyone

in fact, we could have the inspectors do this to each bot in the pits, smack the bot for 2 minutes with a sledge hammer - if the bot breaks, it fails inspection

sounds like a good approach. Who needs rules of engagement? we can solve all our problems with thorough impact testing during inspection.

Yeah I'd have to agree.. you're really reaching. But doing a great job at keeping this thread alive and kicking with debate. You keep changing the subject of your proposals. First you're talking about "pushing and shoving" to be allowed only in bla bla bla certain cases, and "pushing and shoving" should be disallowed under bla bla bla circumstance.
Then you're twisting everyone's words into saying that robustness means withstanding a sledge hammer. That's ridiculous. We've already said there are rules against that type of behavior. It's called battlebots, and FIRST has come nowhere near that. Many believe the rules as they are prevent that type of play, however there's always room for improvement. Even with ramming speed, the rules still apply. If you don't trust the refs to make the calls, that's not our problem, but nobody else in this thread has gone this far to prevent or restrict good defense.
First you want to use new rules to prevent normal, legal defensive play. Then you change the subject to prevent the malicious, intentional, destructive defensive play - have I mentioned we already have rules for that?

Common sense again...that is, in order to quantify "robust" for your team. From what I can tell, 295 teams at nationals were able to quantify "robust" without much problem, without using sledge hammer validation. Great offensive machines apparently used common sense to think, "Hay, I might get beat up, pushed, tipped, etc. since I have such a great offensive machine... Maybe I should use this material, or shield this area, or close off this space to prevent as much damage as possible.. Maybe I should design this for easy repair if need be". Defensive machines did the same thing. It's called engineering.

If you're sore over the vigorous defense teams play, get over it. It happens and will continue to, as the majority of people hope.

[KenWittlief]

Originally Posted by John V

Better yet... I'll have my driver run the bot around the field and you can TRY to hit it with your sledgehammer. Good luck.

drive away - I was thinking to get the impact velocity right the hammers should be dropped from 196 feet

is there a 20 story building somewhere halfway between us? we'll set up an enclosed playfield in the parking lot, you can drive around all you want, and I'll rain down a couple hundred sledge hammer heads for two minutes

or if you prefer side impacts we can rig up a 196 foot tower and swing the hammers down like giant pendulums?

or maybe we can come up with a version of the potato gun? the hammerhead gun?

besides, why do you want to drive around avoid the impacts? isnt your bot robust? you dont want to take the required inspectors two minute pit test to prove your bot is up to snuff?

[Amanda Morrison]

Not only has this reached the point of being ridiculous, I'm going to remind everyone that personal replies or comments should be PM'ed to each other. This thread was started for suggestions to the rules, not how to test robustness of a robot.

As much as you may want the ChiefDelphi community to see your argument, we may not want to see yours.

[JVN]

Originally Posted by KenWittlief

besides, why do you want to drive around avoid the impacts? isnt your bot robust?

After 3 competitions, we've proven our robot is more than robust enough for FIRST. We designed it with the FIRST game in mind.

I guess, if you'd like I can engineer a robot for your sledgehammer game.

It's what I do.

John

[KenWittlief]

Then you're twisting everyone's words into saying that robustness means withstanding a sledge hammer. That's ridiculous. We've already said there are rules against that type of behavior. It's called battlebots, and FIRST has come nowhere near that.

its been stated in this thread that its ok for a bot to drive across the field at full speed and ram another machine, and if the machine breaks it was too flimsy

if I made a mistake in my potential/kinetic energy equations please point them out, but thats what it equates to - driving a 130 lb bot into another at 15mph is the SAME AS hitting it with a 5 lb sledge hammer going 76mph

the same amount of kinetic energy is present in both

if it seems absurd to you that a bot should have to be designed to withstand that type of punishment, ANYWHERE on its exposed surface or mechanism, then you get the point now

it IS absurd to say that all 1000 FIRST teams can design machines to take that kind of abuse

and yes we have rules - but they were NOT imposed on any team at any event that anyone can remember so far - so if a rule was never involked is it really a rule?

[MikeDubreuil]

Although the current topic is a little riddiculous, it is revealing holes in the rules. What qualifies as robust enough? If the defensive rules start appearing in the rules the definition of robust may become more important.

[Don Wright]

Originally Posted by Amanda Morrison

Not only has this reached the point of being ridiculous, I'm going to remind everyone that personal replies or comments should be PM'ed to each other. This thread was started for suggestions to the rules, not how to test robustness of a robot.

As much as you may want the ChiefDelphi community to see your argument, we may not want to see yours.

You're right...I'm sorry...

I hope the rules don't change in terms of aggressive driving and entanglement for next year. They were fine this year.

[ngreen]

Originally Posted by MrToast

Here's a question:

If you get a yellow card in one match, would that card carry over to the other matches?

Example, a team gets a yellow card in qual # 42, and then gets another in qual # 69. Would they be disqualified? Or would they need to get two yellow cards in one match?

Maybe an alternative would be something like:
2 yellow cards in one match is an automatic DQ
----or----
a total of 3 yellow cards, over all the matches, is a DQ

MrToast

In looking at fairness I proposed it only carries over for one or two matches. Yeah this does not make it perfect but it won't be. You could be overly agressive every second or third match and only get yellow cards and not get Dqed.

I'm looking at it from the standpoint of elims.

Say your first qualifying round your driver makes a mistake and rams into another robot partially breaking it. Honest mistake. You fix the problem and play nice and get more no yellow cards the rest of your match. You make it to the finals and your first match you have some questionable aggressive contact with another robot and the ref pulls another yellow card. I can't justify connecting that first mistake with your final aggressive to make a connection that would merit a DQ.

The truth is everyone loves to see the finals played out and to DQ a team and alliance for something the one team did in the first round of qualifiers.

So I would say either one or two matches the yellow would carry over. If you are aggressive enough to get cards in consectutive match I can make that correlation and justify the DQ because of your teams aggressive pattern.

Another solution to the finals problems could be to give everyone a clean slate for the elimination rounds (I don't care one way or the other on this, the advantages and disadvantages are kind of close to the same)

[Karthik]

Sigh. Before further trying to decipher any more of these posts, I suggest that the loyal reader look at the following webpage http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/ .

It's really a fun game, "how many logical fallacies can someone squeeze into one post". I know some people around here have some ill will towards lawyers, but constructing a sound logical argument is not a crime. I know we love our hyperboles, but c'mon.

This thread started with Aidan asking us how we would reinterpret pinning and entanglement if we had the chance. Suddenly we have sledgehammers falling from 196 ft. How did we get from point A to point B? Did I miss something here? Anyone, anyone? Bueller?

Originally Posted by AmyPrib

If you're sore over the vigorous defense teams play, get over it. It happens and will continue to, as the majority of people hope.

The best thing I've seen written in a while. Thank you.

[Steve W]

Since we have changed from rules to I can't build a decent robot thread I will again post. Team 188 built a 6 motor,2 speed transmition. Our robot can raise the 2X ball 13 feet in the air and cap over top of almost any robot between them and the stationary goal. We do not go on the platform but do hang. We are able to play with the toughest of them and survive. Did we retain damage you ask. You better believe it. Did we cry about it? No we went back to the pits and got to work. We had some intricate pulley system that another team accidently caught their robot on and pulled us both over. Mucho damage. I was even asked to come to the pits once my announcing was done to help fix problem. We knew that this might happen but decided to go the way we did. Should other robots back away ? no. I wouldn't expect our team to so why would I ask them to. As was stated in a previous post, better than I am able, it is better to win a hard fought match than have the match handed to you. It is even better to lose knowing you did your best than to give up.

I believe that FIRST has given us a great forum to showcase to the world. Science, engineering, math etc IS NOT BORING and we can prove it. Forget the yellow cards or red ones. All we should see is green for GO and the games begin.

On a personal note : I played racketball with a guy that was WAY better than me. If I ever sensed that he was letting up to make me feel good I would let him feel the sting of the ball on his back. Funny thing is that when that happened he played with more determination to WOOP me. Mission accomplished.

[Ken Leung]

Originally Posted by Amanda Morrison

Not only has this reached the point of being ridiculous, I'm going to remind everyone that personal replies or comments should be PM'ed to each other. This thread was started for suggestions to the rules, not how to test robustness of a robot.

As much as you may want the ChiefDelphi community to see your argument, we may not want to see yours.

Let's try to re-focus our thoughts and energy back into the original topic of the thread, shall we? There were some excellent discussions a page ago, and even though I am quite entertained by the image of KenW going after 229's bot (or vice-versa), I would hate to have to remove any future posts regarding that idea (although I wouldn't reject the idea of scorekeeper vs. robots if someone ever bring that up Q(^_^Q) ).

Just want to remind you that this thread has reached page 4, and it's harder and harder for everyone keep track of all points of the discussion. It would be nice if someone step up to the plate and organize this thread a little bit and point at a direction this discussion should continue onto. Or you can just go back to the original question posted by Adian.

Thanks for understanding~ I am still sick from the Atlanta trip, and even though I kept trying to read through this entire thread, I kept falling asleep half way.