Send-Home Devices

[Matt Reiland]

Kevin and RebAI I appologize if I came off too harsh in my post, I don't know what either of your mouses look like, from your comments it seems like you have taken the time to think of the best ways to protect them from being entangled which is great and everyone should have done the same thing. (I saw 3 different teams add home depot tape measures at GLR) For anyone who doesn't know, my team doesn't have any sort of tether not only for the reason that we have only .3lbs left on the weight requirement but we gave up early on trying to figure out how strict the rules were going to be followed early on because around weeks 1-3 it seemed like there was very little that would NOT be an entanglement RISK. And Kevin noticed one of the things that has made me an angry engineer this year (I couldn't really care either way on mice, honest) its that FIRST has been more wishy washy on thier statements then Ex President Clinton. From telling people they could use 7 cylinders to then 5, telling people how strict the rules were about hurting the carpet then watching chunks taken out at GLR with no consequences, and this whole entanglement issue, the batteries and chargers you name it its frustrating to me. I joke about the tacks, and velcro because honestly I am willing to bet we could have almost anything under the shell of our bot and get away with it if we were not under the gracious professionalism mentality. (Seriously the materials were not questioned, the # of motors not questioned, check in was taking our word for everything)

The only reason I am angry in these send home threads is the fact that 2 times at GLR we were warned (told next time would be a DQ) about blocking send-home devices. Neither time did we destroy, or intend to destroy any one elses robots or tethers this is where I get the BB reference from. I think the send home device (whatever it may be) should be fair game to be blocked or moved out of scoring in the same manner a robot can be blocked or moved our of scoring. If we can all agree on that I am happy. I can not seem to get a read on what the refs are doing out there so we can stay on the up and up. If the refs say what you guys have is legal than, hey, what is said here doen't matter too much they are the only ones we have to convince.

EDIT: I just got a call from Deb at FIRST and it seems like they may release another update or email blast relating to this and some other problems that have arised from the different reigonals to put these threads finally to rest. She sayed that indeed the rules for send-home devices and what is considered an entanglement hazard were lightened including allowing of tape measures(since the ruling at Ohio allowed them), so I somehow missed a bunch of changes.

And for all of the FIRST volunteers out there I thank you for your time you are doing a great job.