YMTC: Hotel Work?

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Originally Posted by Steve W

There is nothing in the rules that prevent a team from working on their robot 24 hrs a day during a competition. The issue is where it is being worked on. It can't be in the pits because they have certain hours.

Steve,
From "The Robot, Rev C" "• At Events: Teams are allowed to repair, modify or upgrade their competition robots while
participating in a FRC event. They may do so only during the period starting with the opening of
the Pit area on Thursday and ending at 4:00PM on Saturday. Work may be done on-site in the Pit or
at any facility made available to all teams at the event, e.g., in a team’s repair trailer or a local
team’s shop offered to all teams to use."
I believe the way it is stated is that work on the robot be only at competitions and as you have noted, the pits are only open for specific hours. Many of the regionals announce that all work must stop on the robot in "fifteen minutes" counting down to zero. The machine shop also stops at these times, therefore if the pits are closed and the machine shop is closed, work must stop.

[Steve W]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

Steve,
From "The Robot, Rev C" "• At Events: Teams are allowed to repair, modify or upgrade their competition robots while
participating in a FRC event. They may do so only during the period starting with the opening of
the Pit area on Thursday and ending at 4:00PM on Saturday. Work may be done on-site in the Pit or
at any facility made available to all teams at the event, e.g., in a team’s repair trailer or a local
team’s shop offered to all teams to use."
I believe the way it is stated is that work on the robot be only at competitions and as you have noted, the pits are only open for specific hours. Many of the regionals announce that all work must stop on the robot in "fifteen minutes" counting down to zero. The machine shop also stops at these times, therefore if the pits are closed and the machine shop is closed, work must stop.

As you notice the rules state open of pit and 4:00 pm on Saturday. There is no cutoff times during stated in the rules. You must stop work in the pits when they close but there is no mention or relation to the local team shops. I believe the intent to be pit hours but the rules do not state that.

[Wetzel]

Originally Posted by jimfortytwo

And then what is the legality of fixing robot code at competition late into the night?

The code has diffrent rules. FIRST let you keep the OI past ship date explicitly to continue to work on the code.

Originally Posted by Steve W

I believe the intent to be pit hours but the rules do not state that.

FIRST told us durring kickoff to use common sense and gracious professionalism to understand the intent behind the rules. They even put that IN the rules.

Originally Posted by Rule 5.2

There are specific rules and limitations governing the design and construction of your robot. When reading the rules, use technical common sense (engineering thinking) rather than lawyer interpretation, and try to understand the reasoning behind a rule.

I think it is clear that FIRST did not intend teams to take parts of the robot off site and work on it all night at their hotel. It doesn't matter the rules as written may be fuzzy, the intent has been consistently made clear.


Wetzel

[Kevin Sevcik]

Originally Posted by Wetzel

FIRST told us durring kickoff to use common sense and gracious professionalism to understand the intent behind the rules. They even put that IN the rules.

I think it is clear that FIRST did not intend teams to take parts of the robot off site and work on it all night at their hotel. It doesn't matter the rules as written may be fuzzy, the intent has been consistently made clear.

Here's my thing... Where is this clear intent coming from? We're all vets here, so we have a reasonably good idea what's up, but rookies don't have this benefit. I'm all for not reading rules like a lawyer, but that rule just screams to me to be cleared up. If a rookie or layman came across that, they'd read it that they're allowed to work on the robot whenever, as long as they can work in the Pits, or at a publicly available team shop. It states there, quite clearly, that you're allowed to work on your robot that entire time. This is one instance where I don't think it's onerous to clarify the rule. If you can't work on the robot the entire time, just say you're only allowed to work during official pit hours, no matter where. Call a spade a spade, not "that black suit, oh yeah, and everyone knows clubs don't count, right?"

Also, my profs always told me that part of engineering thinking is not artificially constricting yourself with assumptions that arent necessary. Don't add things to the problem that aren't there.

[Kris Verdeyen]

Originally Posted by dlavery

Under the stated rules for YMTC, each of us are to act as the "referee" and evaluate and render a judgement regarding a hypothetical game situation. The situation offered in this example is one in which the questioned behavior takes place off the field. As such, the opinion of the "referee" is irrelevent, as actions taking place off the field (and in particular, outside the event venue) are outside the jurisdiction of the referees. Such violations are to be addressed by the judges (if it involves a possible award) and/or the field manager and/or the senior FIRST representative on site. Under the terms of YMTC we are not taking on any of those roles, therefore, our discussions on this question are moot.

Do the judges have the will or knowledge to act in this capacity? We already know that we cannot expect the judges to know every aspect of every rule, and I can't be the only one able to imagine a situation where the offense described wins the team an award:

Bluateam captain, Joey Blue, when meeting with Judges Bill Doesntknowalltherules and Susan Sucessfulbusinesswoman, says, "Well, Judges, we showed up with a poorly functioning right drive train, but after some long hours in the hotel last night, we were able to get it working really well!"
Judges Bill and Susan, duly impressed by Bluateam's extraordinary effort, recommend them for the special judges award for "Going the Extra Mile".

This said, I have to admit that I don't know what exactly goes on behind closed doors in those smoke-filled judge's meetings. Perhaps they are savvy individuals who can see through the smokescreens of well-intentioned youths. Perhaps they're guided by representatives from FIRST who aren't so overworked simply trying to keep the competition going on schedule that they have the time and information to point out this type of violation.

[Wetzel]

FYI, FIRST added two sentences to the rules this year that clearly addresses this.

Originally Posted by <R15>

All work must be completed when the Pit area closes each evening. Parts may not be removed from the competition site and retained overnight after the Pit area closes.

Wetzel