Designs that would never work...

[Wetzel]

Originally Posted by Cyberguy34000

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Bed Sheet Bot

This robot would pretty much have one goal. It would make its way to the enemy control station, and then unfold, and expand its full size curtain over the enemy station, blocking their entire view, and rendering the enemy alliance helpless.

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It would defiantly go against gracious professionalism. But would it be legal?

If it goes against gracious progessionalism, DON'T DO IT. You want to go out and compete like crazy, but if the opponet can't play, then it isn't much of a competition. See Section 0.2, and anything said by Dr Flowers.

Originally Posted by <S05>

A ROBOT may not impede the placement of TETRAS on the loading structures or the hand-off of a TETRA by a HUMAN PLAYER to a ROBOT. No HUMAN PLAYER or field attendant may be accosted by a ROBOT while placing TETRAS. Violations will result immediate disabling of the offending ROBOT, and disqualification of the alliance.

If the drivers can't see, you are impeding. I would also use <G25>

Wetzel

[ahecht]

Originally Posted by Cyberguy34000

This design has one very obvious and fatal flaw, besides being illegal because it sits on top of the goal. In order to work the stilt/arms it would have have the strength of titanium and the weight of a toothpick. Oh, well...

I'm not sure that it is illegal to sit on top of the goal. <G20> says that "ROBOTS may not grab, grasp, grapple or attach to the GOALS or any other field structure". However, it says nothing about reacting against field structures. I'm not sure that sitting on a goal counts as grabbing, grasping, grappling, or attaching.

Originally Posted by Cyberguy34000

I actually really liked this design and it might have actually been a remote possibility if it weren't for the new rule this year about trapping opponents. It counts off 10 points for every 10 seconds you have trapped an enemy robot. So if you trapped all 3 enemy robots, depending on how fast you did it, you'd be seriously screwed, with a little over -350 points in penalties.

I searched the PDFs, and didn't find any rule about trapping (the words trap or trapping never appear). <G21> only referrs to pinning, where a robot is unable to move at all and is pressed between you and a field element (pinning an opponant robot between two alliance robots is legal). Blocking off a section of the field is legal as long as your opponant has any movement.

[russell]

you notice theres a rule that says you cannot use a grabber to rip out wire or hoses. There is another rule that says you may not put something under another robot then lift it up. So what you do is you build a wedge shaped robot that drives under other robots and lifts them up, without actually lifting. Then you have a little probes that plug into their programming port, then you reprogram their robot to drive around autonomously and put your color tetras on all the goals. Its like the borg from startrek. And as far as I can tell its actually legal.

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by russell

you notice theres a rule that says you cannot use a grabber to rip out wire or hoses. There is another rule that says you may not put something under another robot then lift it up. So what you do is you build a wedge shaped robot that drives under other robots and lifts them up, without actually lifting. Then you have a little probes that plug into their programming port, then you reprogram their robot to drive around autonomously and put your color tetras on all the goals. Its like the borg from startrek. And as far as I can tell its actually legal.

The rules also never explicitly say that I can't park a Boeing 747 right in the middle of the play field and use it as an obstacle for the other alliance. But after a little thought, something tells me that I probably should not do it.

Every now and then, the judicious application of a modicum of common sense can make all the difference in the world.

-dave

[looneylin]

I was thinking, at first, about a bot that would knock off all the opponents tetras from the goals n then dump it outside the arena. then it would continuously go over to the opponent's loading platforms n knock over the tetras or keep the other bots from accessing the manual loading platform. Also, it would herd all the goal tetras into a corner so that only our alliance had access to them.

[phrontist]

I want to see a bot that stacks tetras into a pyramid and then climbs it to cap goals...

[Cyberguy34000]

Parasite Bot

Consider a robot that would be really really small. And very fast. And it could jump. So in autonamous mode the thing would race to the other side of the course and then fly through the air and land onto an enemy robot. It would then use its apenagees to grapple onto the robot and use its strongest arm for incapacitating the enemy robot's arm, rendering it pretty much useless.

[Cyberguy34000]

With regard to King Kong, While it might not be illegal to sit on top, if it couldn't grapple onto the base then as soon as the arms moved the center of gravity would shift and the entire thing would just fall off.

A ROBOT may not impede the placement of TETRAS on the loading structures or the hand-off of a TETRA by a HUMAN PLAYER to a ROBOT. No HUMAN PLAYER or field attendant may be accosted by a ROBOT while placing TETRAS. Violations will result immediate disabling of the offending ROBOT, and disqualification of the alliance.


I still don't see how bedsheet bot violates this rule This rule applies to the loading of tetras on the SIDE STATIONS. Any others you can come up with?

[Aignam]

Originally Posted by Cyberguy34000

I still don't see how bedsheet bot violates this rule This rule applies to the loading of tetras on the SIDE STATIONS. Any others you can come up with?

Just because an issue isn't addressed specifically doesn't mean that it's not illegal. FIRST is built around gracious professionalism, and FIRST-ers are to apply gracious professionalism in every aspect of FIRST (and preferrably in extra-FIRST matters, as well). This includes in the build season, in the arena, and yes, even in interpreting the rules.

Could you build the "bed sheet bot"? Yeah, I suppose. Would it be gracious professionalism to employ that strategy? Nope. Would it last 1 match on the field before a ref steps in and makes the call that it's illegal? Nope, definitely not.

Threads like this can be fun---but you're starting to sound a little too serious about breaking the rules. Everything has limits.

[Cyberguy34000]

On building a bot that would violate gracious profesionalism...

I'm not looking for loopholes in the rules in order to take advantage of them. I'm trying to highlight some problems that FIRST might have overlooked. I apologize for getting a little sidetracked or if I made it appear as if I was trying to consider building or condoning a bot that would give a very unfair advantage to a certain team.

Overall I still want to keep this thread as a fun place for those bad designs and ideas that got shot down in those brainsatorming sessions to be heard. So don't let this get in the way. Lets hear some more of those casulties of common sense!

[Justin]

For what it is worth,

Never say never...that was a rule my old team use to live by. We would always start the season by considering that without fail in FIRST for ever design you come up with you will probably see it on a robot that season. It happened to me year after year. So Never say Never ;-)

Good Luck all!!

Justin

[russell]

Ok this is definetly not gracious professionalism, but I dont see a rule that prohibits a team from trying to short out the other teams control system. Preferrably find some way to keep the dammage only temporary, so that when they show up on your team you are not totally screwed.

[ShadowKnight]

That would fall under the category of intentionally damaging another team's robot which is stricly illegal...

[ZoNeGuY]

Heh my first idea was to have a robot that could extend about 9 feet long(telescoping) and block the opposition from crossing your like of defence.
But then I realized that unless we had wheels at the ends that could hold their place as a 120 robot "bumped" into it and spun the gargantuan.

Bleh, it would be nice........

[sanddrag]

Idea that would never work:

Using a 60 tooth #35 steel 1/2" bore sprocket on your arm. We learned the hard way tonight that there is no such thing you can buy.