YMTC: Redabot weighs 129.8?

[BillCloyes]

This thread is a deceivingly good discussion. When I happened on to it, I was rather indifferent to the poll question but wanted to see where the consensus of the FIRST community stood. Admittedly, while reading the through it, I have been swayed toward legal and,to illegal, and back again, and so on....

After taking in the thread thus far, I think that...

The swapping of the drill motor lends itself to swapping of other common parts between the modular components: Jumpy and Grabby. With this line of reasoning, all the bolts (inherently heavy), for example, could be exchanged from Jumpy to Grabby and back again. For inspection Jumpy could be on the robot, and Grabby would be just a pile of aluminum waiting to be assembled. This even goes so far as give the team the benefit of the doubt that no "spares" were used and that parts were actually swapped out each time. I think common sense tells us that this example is a bit far down on a slippery slope of what is technically considered legal. (i.e. it doesn't pass the "spirit of the rules" test, particularly the pile of aluminum being a mechanism)

The rules have got to be more than just unverifiable proclamations of legal verses illegal. There must be a way to clearly define what is legal and what is not; an ability to check that the rules are being followed (not to give up on gracious professionalism, but as a way to spot check and ensure the integrity of the game.

I think the heart of this is not about swapping parts between the modular components, but rather if modular components need to be complete (ALL pieces/parts present to function) to pass inspection (for 2004).

With this focus, it gets the scenario away from the uncheckable grey area of whether or not they actually swap the motor between the two components, and back into a hands of the inspectors where a consistent ruling can be made and rules can clearly interpreted by all teams.

..and isn't consistency in the rules all we really want each year ...consistency from kickoff to the ship date...consistency from match to match, competition to competition...

-Bill

[Kevin Sevcik]

I'll agree that specifying that all additional assemblies need to be complete, or as complete as possible. There are probably other weird gray area scenarios that you could think up for that, of course. For instance, you could have two different length arms or something. They attach to the same pivot on the base at one end and use the same grabber mechanism at the other end. So it's kinda questionable how complete it really is since you wouldn't be swapping out the grabber. So there's always gray areas, they just get resized and shifted around.

Back on topic, though... The current discussion is about the rules as written last year, and I think they're quite a bit more vague on how complete the extra assemblies need to be. So I'll continue to say that as of last year, swapping the motor was probably legal. It'd just be nice if that issue were cleared up for this year.

Think the current rulemakers are reading these YMTC threads as well as last year's Q&A to see where confusion points can crop up in the rules?

[Dan Richardson]

This is seemingly very complicated but a very easy solution to the problem.. Team redabot could use the 2 seperate drill motors siting 1 as a replacement.. however every time that they switched between the 2 motors.. all that is needed to do is unscrew the motor from the chasis.

Even if you switched back and forth between the motors it would be a replacement part as long as you just took it off all that would have to be accounted for is the mount.

Maybe this is twisting the question a little, but you could use 2 seperate motors as long as you detatch it from the other mechanism. Because something doesn't have to be broken to be replaced.

[Alex Golec]

A legal loophole to this would be: The drill is attached through wires to the main base of the robot, so it is part of the base. The point at which it disconnects would be the screws that hold it into the optional functions.

So what I've boiled all this down to is: the rules have no definition for what is a 'system' or 'function,' nor for determining what is a point of detachment and where that point is.

My opinion is that the drills should be connected to the functions, because the connection between the drills and metal is stronger than that of the drills and wires. I stick to this opinion, but I understand how it could be viewed otherwise.

_Alex

[Al Skierkiewicz]

OK, I will make a stab at this again. I like using real world examples so here is one I am very familiar with. Wildstang has modular, crab steering as everyone knows. Each of four drive modules can be swapped out (four bolts and an electrical connector) at anytime so therefore one can consider them "attachments". Two of the modules use drill motors and two use FP motors. The robot shows up for inspection and all four modules are separate from the robot and sitting on the cart. All of the modules have motor mounts but only three of the modules actually have motors. A drill motor is missing. Of course there are plenty of spare motors and spare drive modules with motors already mounted. We put the robot, and "attachments" on the scale and are logged in at 129.8 lb. Back in the pit as the robot is reassembled, all four modules are fitted with motors in place and out to the competition field.

To make a few statements before you get excited...Both the Wildstang robot and the virtual robot have attachments that need motors to be functional. Both robots mount the motors on the attachments to play. Both robots weighed in with all attachments on the scale as outlined in <R06> under 5.2.3 of the robot rules. Both robots weighed in without a motor mounted in an attachment that is used during competition and passed inspection. Now as it stands, the only difference is that the virtual robot has an attachment left in the pit (making it considerably less than 130 lb.) and Wildstang has left nothing in the pit. Of course you are going to cry foul, but on what basis? Wildstang weighed in under the same interpretation of the rule as virtual robot. It weighed in with all attachments and the basic robot on the scale at the same time, same as virtual. It left one drill motor behind, same as virtual. Check the rule and the example and pass the red face test by telling me a rookie could make this error with just the rule book in front of them. The rule is clear and the example is clearer.

"Luckily, I don't take offense to being labelled a lawyer; perhaps I take comfort in the fact that attorneys have much higher average IQs than professional engineers."
Jonathon, I challenge this. You need to come up with some hard evidence in support of this claim.
Tristan, although I disagree with you I do need to give you some encouragement. You have an outstanding command of the English language, written at least. I would expect no less of your spoken language as well. It is rare to come across such well written paragraphs in modern literature let alone in technical text such as these forums. Please make good use of this gift, do not waste it.

[jonathan lall]

Okay, time out on the topic. If you feel the urge to slap me (and I know you do), do it in a Private Message, because I don’t want to kill this rather enjoyable thread.

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

Jonathon, I challenge this. You need to come up with some hard evidence in support of this claim.

I was wondering how long it would take for someone to take issue with that comment. It's in direct response to another comment (also in jest) made earlier. After all, I have to keep my image as a ‘public defender’ of lawyers everywhere on this forum, because in general, FIRST is taught to hate them in a dazzling display of biased ignorance. That being said, I actually did my research before I made that little parting remark. I would have been content to not disclose any sources, but since you asked…

Know Your Child’s IQ, by Glen Wilson and Diana Grylls lists occupations that they maintain are typified by various IQ levels. It is unclear where they got this information or whether it is based on empirical data at all however to your credit, engineers are placed in the same IQ category as lawyers; that is the ~130 mark.

But.

CNN did a story on this very recently and mentioned attorneys scored higher than all other professional disciplines, including "doctors" (as in MDs), and engineers. Professional disciplines are by far the cream of the crop in this regard. However, it should also be noted that years of schooling and IQ are proportional. In order to become an engineer, one can take half the schooling the average lawyer or doctor has to endure. I am guessing (though I have no proof of this) that engineers have higher IQs than MDs on average for the simple fact that the IQ system places a high emphasis on mathematical prowess, but the years of schooling proportionality is evidenced in the table here (engineers are notably not mentioned in that table) for those interested.

Unfortunately, I could only find one set of IQ ratings of both attorneys and professional engineers here, but the lowest mean IQ I could find with Google for “attorneys” or “lawyers” was 127, whereas according to this, the mean IQ of engineers (who have not gone back for another three or four years of school--remember again the years of school propotionality I discussed earlier) is 111. This is the also the lowest average IQ for engineers I could find. I did not find any source that put engineers’ average IQ above that of lawyers, but if you find one, point me in its direction by all means. The point is that an analysis of numerical data puts the average lawyer at least three points ahead of the average engineer.

Flame away everyone, but in a PM. Quickly back on topic, while I would really prefer to stay out of this part of the discussion, I'd just like to note that Al's example of four crab steering devices could be logically interpreted as one device or module; one could argue that the mobility of this hypothetical Wildstang consists of four tangible objects, and thus the fact that they are not physically attached is a side issue. Run with that if you like.

[Tristan Lall]

Aside: Well, that's why I keep telling myself to type posts in Notepad and save frequently. A brief power outage just engulfed a rather lengthy post. I don't think I have time to type it out again tonight, but maybe I'll regain enough stamina tomorrow afternoon to go through and type it again. Just as a brief summary of the main thing that I was trying to say, I'll provide this position with regrettably insufficient corroborating explanation:

I think that Al's last situation differs in that the excess weight is being used on the field, rather than as a part of something going on in the pits. I submit that a team is given leave to configure the robot however they want during the time that it is in the pits, simply because maintenance often creates temporary, intentional situations where the robot is not legally operable, and as such, it is impossible to apply the rules. To add the motor to the second assembly while that assembly is in the pits is simply a reasonable interpretation of that privilege; to deny a team the liberty to take this action is to also cause a great number of supposedly legitimate maintenance tasks to become illegal. For example, if the team with the multi-bolted robot needed to install all bolts to debug their programming, would it be illegal? Their robot is overweight during that activity, but rest assured that the robot would never compete in a configuration that would cause it to be overweight; I say that Redabot is similar, and that neither of these teams would need to install their extra components during inspection, because they would not be used in a match--merely used to configure the robot in the pits.

That might not be brief by anyone else's standards. So be it.

And by the way, thanks for the compliment, Al.

[gburlison]

I have lurked in this thread for a couple of days now and to me the simplest answer is that you inspect the way you compete.

If you are going to inspect with one motor, than you should compete with one motor. If swapping the motor is not convenient, than you should change the design to make it convenient, or inspect with two motors and change the design to meet the weight requirements.

While reading the responses I thought of a subtle variation on this question. What if the main part of the robot already has one drill motor?
At inspection time Jumpy has one motor and Grabby has one motor. So now you are trying to pass inspection with 3 drill motors, however the rules state that you can only have 2. YMTC

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Originally Posted by jonathan lall

Flame away everyone, but in a PM. Quickly back on topic, while I would really prefer to stay out of this part of the discussion, I'd just like to note that Al's example of four crab steering devices could be logically interpreted as one device or module; one could argue that the mobility of this hypothetical Wildstang consists of four tangible objects, and thus the fact that they are not physically attached is a side issue. Run with that if you like.

Jonathon,
The point is that this is not a "hypothetical" Wildstang robot. It is the robot we used this year, fit into the example under discussion. (We weighed in at 130.00 BTW, it was more humid in Atlanta than in Chicago) Everything being equal to the virtual robot except the configuration when it hit the field. When the robot (under discussion) was weighed in, did it violate any rules?

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

I think that Al's last situation differs in that the excess weight is being used on the field, rather than as a part of something going on in the pits. I submit that a team is given leave to configure the robot however they want during the time that it is in the pits, simply because maintenance often creates temporary, intentional situations where the robot is not legally operable, and as such, it is impossible to apply the rules. To add the motor to the second assembly while that assembly is in the pits is simply a reasonable interpretation of that privilege; to deny a team the liberty to take this action is to also cause a great number of supposedly legitimate maintenance tasks to become illegal. For example, if the team with the multi-bolted robot needed to install all bolts to debug their programming, would it be illegal? Their robot is overweight during that activity, but rest assured that the robot would never compete in a configuration that would cause it to be overweight; I say that Redabot is similar, and that neither of these teams would need to install their extra components during inspection, because they would not be used in a match--merely used to configure the robot in the pits.

I think the trick is that in the original situation, the extra motor isn't necessarily installed just in the pit and just for maintenence. Presumably, for the modular system to be truly useful, you should be able to make the change just before the match based on the opposing team's percieved strategy. So you would probably be bringing both assemblies out into the arena to make a quick swap. So it's not really a maintenence kind of thing, especially if you're leaving it that way and competing with it that way.

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by jonathan lall

Okay, time out on the topic. If you feel the urge to slap me (and I know you do), do it in a Private Message, because I don’t want to kill this rather enjoyable thread.

I was wondering how long it would take for someone to take issue with that comment. It's in direct response to another comment (also in jest) made earlier. After all, I have to keep my image as a ‘public defender’ of lawyers everywhere on this forum, because in general, FIRST is taught to hate them in a dazzling display of biased ignorance. That being said, I actually did my research before I made that little parting remark. I would have been content to not disclose any sources, but since you asked…

Know Your Child’s IQ, by Glen Wilson and Diana Grylls lists occupations that they maintain are typified by various IQ levels. It is unclear where they got this information or whether it is based on empirical data at all however to your credit, engineers are placed in the same IQ category as lawyers; that is the ~130 mark.

But.

CNN did a story on this very recently and mentioned attorneys scored higher than all other professional disciplines, including "doctors" (as in MDs), and engineers. Professional disciplines are by far the cream of the crop in this regard. However, it should also be noted that years of schooling and IQ are proportional. In order to become an engineer, one can take half the schooling the average lawyer or doctor has to endure. I am guessing (though I have no proof of this) that engineers have higher IQs than MDs on average for the simple fact that the IQ system places a high emphasis on mathematical prowess, but the years of schooling proportionality is evidenced in the table here (engineers are notably not mentioned in that table) for those interested.

Unfortunately, I could only find one set of IQ ratings of both attorneys and professional engineers here, but the lowest mean IQ I could find with Google for “attorneys” or “lawyers” was 127, whereas according to this, the mean IQ of engineers (who have not gone back for another three or four years of school--remember again the years of school propotionality I discussed earlier) is 111. This is the also the lowest average IQ for engineers I could find. I did not find any source that put engineers’ average IQ above that of lawyers, but if you find one, point me in its direction by all means. The point is that an analysis of numerical data puts the average lawyer at least three points ahead of the average engineer.

Flame away everyone, but in a PM. Quickly back on topic, while I would really prefer to stay out of this part of the discussion, I'd just like to note that Al's example of four crab steering devices could be logically interpreted as one device or module; one could argue that the mobility of this hypothetical Wildstang consists of four tangible objects, and thus the fact that they are not physically attached is a side issue. Run with that if you like.

Pitcher does a fast throw to third trying to snag the runner, but doesn't set for the pitch. Tweet! Umpire calls a balk. Opposing batter advances to first base. **

You can't post a diatribe like this in a public forum, and then insist that all those that want to respond must do so only via PM. Sorry, but those sorts of double standards are inappropriate. Whenever anyone makes a public post on this (or any other forum), you must expect and even welcome a public response. To do otherwise is to say "my words are worthy of public scrutiny and acceptance, but if you disagree with me then by definition your words do not meet the same standards." This is disingenuous and demeaning to those who see things in a different - and possibly more correct - way than you do. This is particularly true when the post is based on facts of questionable validity (i.e. the only references are opinion essay web sites that do not list any verified, peer reviewed data sources).

You publicly opened the door on this side-topic, so you need to be prepared for a public discussion that may follow. If it is too divergent from the original discussion and you feel it deserves a seperate thread, then fine. Make a new thread and move the discussion there. But to limit public discourse to just one side of the discussion is intellectually dishonest.

-dave

**<edit>Natchez caught me on this one. He says the third base runner comes home on a balk. Turns out we were both right. According to The Baseball Almanac and Official Major League Rules Book in Section 8.05 - The Pitcher, all runners advance one base on a balk, not just the batter. The batter will go to first and the third base runner will come home.</edit>

[jonathan lall]

Ack, this baseball extended metaphor is starting to hurt my head. I'm not sure I get it anymore. But that's okay, because people in Toronto have had no inclination to be baseball fans for a good decade.

I question whether there's enough demand, but if there is, we can all discuss this in a split thread (which a moderator can do to certain posts in this thread). Let me know and I'll ask. But Dave, you are mistaking the reasoning behind my posting this publically. I am by no means trying to squash any criticisms; after all, I am confident I can respond to anything someone can bring to it--No I want to. My reasoning is based on evidence, and data has been one-sided (I admitted originally that some sources were of questionable credibility, but that doesn't change the fact that no source gives engineers the advantage). My reasoning behind that last public post is actually very simple and comes in three parts:

a) it is in response to one comment in particular (yes in jest, but that's not the point), made in public

b) it was challenged in public forum by a seperate individual

c) if I were to PM one or both of these individuals it would not preclude my being challenged by other people such as yourself who haven't received this PM, in which case I'd have to take the time to write each and every such person a letter, which I don't have the inclination to do (ask yourself if you or someone like you would have let a comment like that slide had I not made that reply; I certainly wouldn't have )

I wasn't aware that some people held public discourse of a joke topic in such high regard. But if that's the case, I'm willing to go. I refuse to be called names like "intellectually dishonest" under mistaken premises.

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

I think the trick is that in the original situation, the extra motor isn't necessarily installed just in the pit and just for maintenence. Presumably, for the modular system to be truly useful, you should be able to make the change just before the match based on the opposing team's percieved strategy. So you would probably be bringing both assemblies out into the arena to make a quick swap. So it's not really a maintenence kind of thing, especially if you're leaving it that way and competing with it that way.

That is a very sensible point. The problem we're all facing with these hypothetical systems is that we don't quite know what their capabilities are; can that change of function be pulled off in the seconds preceding an elimination match? Maybe--and if so, I understand the reasoning that this isn't so much a convenience issue as it is a strategic one. If, on the other hand, it takes several minutes to change modules, maybe the element of surprise is lost--your opponents have five minutes to watch you adjust and reconfigure, and to reconsider their strategy. In that sense, the primary advantage that you gain (beyond the change of assembly) is the introduction of a fresh motor--in other words, a maintenance issue.

[Wetzel]

<R76> The costs of "spare" parts are excluded from this rule. A spare part is defined as a part that a team has obtained as a direct replacement for a failed or defective Robot part (Kit part or non-kit part)

If one reads all the rules, a spare part is defined as a direct replacement for a failed or defective Robot part. Swapping a functional motor between two different functional modules does not meet this definition.


Wetzel