"Load Bearing Surface"

[rees2001]

Well they answered my question...I think?

ID: 1773 Section: 4.3.3 Status: Answered Date Answered: 2/28/2005

Q: We designed and built a robot that would tip from 38x28 to 38x60. The “new” base and drive train is “blatantly obvious that our robot is in the LZ” and ”has a load bearing surface in contact with the hdpe”. Is our robot in the LZ?

A: If we understand your question correctly, yes. Robots that "flop" basically must declare a 28" x 38" of their robot to be the "robot base." This is the section that the referees will always use to determine if your robot is in the loading zone.

Does this mean we can declare the 28x38 section of the robot that makes contact with the LZ the "Base"

I'm not sure they followed your lead Ken. Great suggestion, maybe too late? All I know is the area of our robot that covers the LZ is the base, the rest ... who cares.

[Dan-o]

Originally Posted by rees2001

Well they answered my question...I think?

ID: 1773 Section: 4.3.3 Status: Answered Date Answered: 2/28/2005

Q: We designed and built a robot that would tip from 38x28 to 38x60. The “new” base and drive train is “blatantly obvious that our robot is in the LZ” and ”has a load bearing surface in contact with the hdpe”. Is our robot in the LZ?

A: If we understand your question correctly, yes. Robots that "flop" basically must declare a 28" x 38" of their robot to be the "robot base." This is the section that the referees will always use to determine if your robot is in the loading zone.

Does this mean we can declare the 28x38 section of the robot that makes contact with the LZ the "Base"

I'm not sure they followed your lead Ken. Great suggestion, maybe too late? All I know is the area of our robot that covers the LZ is the base, the rest ... who cares.

Oh god, I hate to say it, but FIRST just opened another can of worms. Say my team, instead of flopping on its side lays out outriggers in front of us designed to touch the HDPE and we tell the refs that that is the part of the robot that we want to be judged on. My team is not looking at doing this, but I'm sure that this will throw yet another wrench into what used to be a fine oiled machine.

My suggestion to the FIRST community is to back off a little, and beg headquarters to release a statement on the matter. Ask them to be very clear and concise with their wording. Also, ask that there be mention of exactly how each regional will judge this at the drivers' meeting before the competitions. At this point, all of you are just repeating each other through 106 posts. Getting all up in arms about the semantics of the rule would be great IF it was directed at FIRST officials, and NOT other people who are just confused as you are. So my advise to you all is to just calm down, and let FIRST do what they have always done.



Until competition, your local Dr. Phil signing off

[Natchez]

Originally Posted by Jason Morrella

While a few people are clearly very worked up over this loading zone rules, I think they will be pleasantly surprised that it does not become the big train wreck/debate they fear.

As the proud introducer of "train wreck" to this discussion, I now believe that you are 100% right, this will not be a big issue this year; not because the refs will get the calls right more than 80% of the time, but because the flags will be staying in their pockets on 95% of the violations.

NOTE: I have been very impressed with the above-the-belt discussion that this thread has maintained. Likewise, please do not misconstrue my passion on this subject as a personal attack on Jason. I have a HUGE amount of respect for Jason and he has given so much to FIRST that I would never dismiss his comments ... just respectfully disagree. Since I feel that FIRST is philosophically going in the wrong direction concerning rules, I present the following in an effort to encourage change.

The reason that I believe that we will be pleasantly surprised in '05 is that the refs will introduce an "in the neighborhood" policy for being in the loading zones similar to how we train our FLL refs, "Enforce the rules but give the teams the benefit of the doubt." Furthermore, I predict that only the blatant offenders will ever be called for loading zone violations. This will make the offending teams happy because they did not get a flag; and the opposing alliance will never know the difference because they will not have been paying attention to the other alliance and even if they did see a violation, they would be chastised for not being gracious professionals if they appealed the no-call.

Concerning being "worked up", I'm not "worked up" about this rule nor about us losing a few matches if my prediction becomes reality nor about the disadvantage that we are now at because we chopped off our arms then wire ties were allowed; I'M WORKED UP BECAUSE WE ARE SENDING THE WRONG MESSAGE TO A FUTURE GENERATION. If my prediction becomes reality, we are sending a message to our youth that, "you don't have to follow the rules, just adjust to what is being enforced." If you are looking to refute my prediction, you don't have to look too far back when the Championship came along with, "Mom, I know that I chewed up and buckled the carpet ... you didn't punish me 6 weeks ago when I did it so why are you going to punish me now?"

Concerning the future that has little to do with this year's game, I am striving (begging if I thought it would change the world) to get back to a society where rules are not to be broken irregardless of who is watching. Please remember, that all of the FIRST high school participants have grown up in a heavily lawyerized world where justifying rules violations is the norm instead of the exception. It will literally take generations to turn this ship around but I've always thought that there are a few organizations (Scouting, Religions, FIRST, Ultimate Players Association, etc.) that are making significant strides in the right direction. Trust me, the stones that I cast are VERY small ones (pea gravel at best) because, Lord knows, I stay in the "gray" zone far too often.

Concerning "you don't have to follow the rules, just adjust to the enforcement", I contend that when people are on the losing end of this philosophy which results in the loss of food and shelter for their family, they really get why this is wrong. It happens thousands of times each day in America, the "shrewd" businessman finds the loophole that steals work from the honest guy ... even to the point of putting him out of business.

Example #1
You told me that the sand was $3 per yard ... your bill says it is $10.50 per yard. Yes m'am, the sand is only $3 per yard but you never asked about the delivery charge which was $7.50 per yard. I could have bought it from Billy for $6.00 per yard!

Example #2
I'm glad to hear that we won the contract to build the next Mississippi River Bridge for $2 billion dollars. By the way, would the government like to upgrade to standard sized lanes or go with the 6 foot lanes in our bid? It will only cost another billion dollars. WHAT DO YOU MEAN, UPGRADE? Oh, did you not know that you only requested 4 lanes in your Request for Bid and not 4 DOT Standard Lanes. In 1924, it was specified in an official Mississippi government document that automobile lanes shall be 6 feet wide so our bid included 6 foot wide lanes. YOU *@#&&@#^&%^$(@. Sir, again, we'd like to thank you for the $2 billion dollar ... hmmmmm ... $3 billion dollar contract.

Granted, as a society, we have to meet in the middle on this. The rules makers (congressmen, homeowner associations, school boards, etc.) must get better about writing reasonable rules while we must get better about following rules.

Enough of my "I'd like to save the world" & "I'd like to teach the world to sing" talk ... a few quick thoughts about Jason's response.

Originally Posted by Jason Morrella

Be TOUCHING (not new, this has been the case for 46 days now and before anyone started building a robot) the loading zone triangle

If you leave the word "triangle" out then you are exactly correct that this rule has been around for 46 days but "TOUCHING the loading zone" is different than "TOUCHING the loading zone triangle"

Originally Posted by Jason Morrella

The robot needs to "touch" the zone.

See, it is very easy to leave off the word "triangle". Don't forget that traditionally in sports, "zone" refers to a surface that is projected across a distance. For example, the end zone in football is a 10x55 yd rectangle projected to infinity or the strike zone in baseball is the plate projected from the knees to the letters.

Originally Posted by Jason Morrella

Take the baseball analogy - if a runner going from second to home only had to pass OVER third base and not touch it, both coaches would be sprinting out of the dugout on almost every play to argue with the umpire that the player was or wasn't over the corner tip of the base. However, in baseball it is the player’s responsibility to clearly touch the base to be safe. They can touch the center of the base, the side of the base, or just the little bity tip of the base - but they do have to touch it. ... It’s that simple and leads to very few arguments.

EXACTLY!!! But what about the unwritten rule that the short-stop or second-baseman only needs to be "in the neighborhood" of second base when turning a double play? Even though there are many violations, there doesn't seem to be a lot of "coaches would be sprinting out of the dugout on almost every play to argue with the umpire." The rule says that the short-stop/second-baseman must tag the base while having control of the ball for the runner from first to be out. Rarely is this violation "called" unless it is blatant. This scenario of being "in the neighborhood" is exactly what I think will happen this year ... lots of violations with very few of them called.

Originally Posted by Jason Morrella

For those who feel teams are going to argue with refs that part of their robot is actually touching the triangle after the ref says it isn't.

They will not be arguing because, in general, only the unarguable violations will be called. Likewise, the teams that would like to argue the no-calls on the other side of the field know better because their alliance got a couple "breaks" and it would not be in the Spirit of FIRST to argue. BUT, if this was going to take food and shelter from their family, you bet there would be a lot of arguing ... it's not the case so this point is moot.

Originally Posted by Jason Morrella

What I do disagree with is the thought that this is a train wreck about to happen, that the sky is falling, and so on. I think back to the ball corral and goaltending rules last year.

I think back to sticks protruding outside of the arena going 15 feet per second, which violated the safety rules in my opinion, and FIRST making "back room" agreements (outside of the Q&A system) that made it legal. We ended up ditching all of our autonomy work because there was no way we could get to the middle of the field before "sticky" got there and resulted in us implementing a not-too-sophisticated "meet our sticky neighbor" algorithm.

Originally Posted by Jason Morrella

I think some underestimate our teams, students, and mentors.

NOT ME! I just underestimated FIRST this year ... Put down your tools; No software development; .......

Rules are NOT to be broken ... not the letter nor spirit,
Lucien

I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony

[Peter Matteson]

It's official we have this year's "infield fly rule".

For those of you who missed this last year see the link below:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ht=infield+fly

Pete

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by Natchez

If you leave the word "triangle" out then you are exactly correct that this rule has been around for 46 days but "TOUCHING the loading zone" is different than "TOUCHING the loading zone triangle"

...

See, it is very easy to leave off the word "triangle". Don't forget that traditionally in sports, "zone" refers to a surface that is projected across a distance. For example, the end zone in football is a 10x55 yd rectangle projected to infinity or the strike zone in baseball is the plate projected from the knees to the letters.

...

EXACTLY!!! But what about the unwritten rule that the short-stop or second-baseman only needs to be "in the neighborhood" of second base when turning a double play? Even though there are many violations, there doesn't seem to be a lot of "coaches would be sprinting out of the dugout on almost every play to argue with the umpire." The rule says that the short-stop/second-baseman must tag the base while having control of the ball for the runner from first to be out. Rarely is this violation "called" unless it is blatant. This scenario of being "in the neighborhood" is exactly what I think will happen this year ... lots of violations with very few of them called.

Jason's remarks and quotes were right on target. There is no difference between the "loading zone" and "loading zone triangle." Specifically, refer to Section 4.2.1 of the Manual, Definitions: "LOADING ZONE – The triangular colored area on the floor at the sides of the field where robots may receive and/or retrieve TETRAS that are introduced into the game." You are trying to make a distinction between "loading zone" and "loading zone triangle" where there is no difference.

The comments regarding a baseball short stop being "in the neighborhood" are amusing but irrelevant. We are not playing baseball, and MLB rules do not apply. A single analogy with baseball was used to try to help clarify a single point of discussion with regard to the 2005 "Triple Play" rules. But everyone understands that is all that it was - a single analogy. Don't push it too hard, beyond its' intended use.

Lucien, I honestly don't know where you are trying to go with this. Within just a few paragraphs, you urge the referees to ignore rules violations unless they are so blatent that they cannot be ignored and adopt some completely undefined "neighborhood" policy for determining the robot/loading zone condition, yet then you admonish everyone that "rules are NOT to be broken."

The logic of many of the statements in this thread eludes me. FIRST made it clear in the Manual released at kick off what constituted the Loading Zone (see above reference). They made it clear on 1/11 that being "in" the Loading Zone required "touching" the loading zone, and that you needed to be blatently clear about touching the zone, with the robot drive system or base. The only thing I can see as a possible source of confusion is the determination of what is the robot "base." That was clarified later, which is what everyone seems so worked up about in this and other threads. But I have to ask, if there was so much confusion about what would be considered the "base" of the robot and this was such a big deal, why did everyone wait to actually ask FIRST about it until 2/16/2005 (the first time this shows up in the Q&A system)? One would imagine that if so many teams were really confused by this, and if the determination of the answer would lead to drastic impacts on their robot designs, some one would have asked about it much, much sooner in the process. I have to wonder, is this really a catastrophic issue for the majority of teams? Or is it really an issue for a very small number of teams, who just happen to be very vocal? (I looked through the threads to see how many teams were represented vs. repeated to reach my own conclusion, I will let you reach yours).

-dave

[Peter Matteson]

To all the partof this rule that really upset me I don't think has been truely addressed, Dave's comments above made me feel the need to point this out. Most of you seem to be talking more about the human player loading zone which isn't where I see the problem.

In Team update #8 on 2/4/04 FIRST added the following line to <G14> which in my opinion drastically changed the rules of the game:

If a robot touches a loading station tetra before it is in the LOADING ZONE, the offending alliance will be assessed a 10-point penalty and the tetra will not be scored.

Prior to this update there was no mention in the rules of a robot having to be in the auto loading station's loading zone to acquire a tetra. Don't flame claiming otherwise I was keeping track of this for some very specific reasons. This was a strategy and robot design changing rule in my

One strategy I propsed because of this was a stationary robot that could grab tetra's and score them with out moving just by using outriggers. Had we gone that route our strategy and robot design would suddenly become illegal with little build time left to change this. To me that is the biggest issue with this rule. FIRST should not make new rules that have an impact as large as this during the build season.

Pete

[AmyPrib]

This is an interesting question:

: 1785 Section: 4.3.3 Status: Unanswered Date Posted: 3/1/2005
Q: re Q&A 1773: May robots who permanently deploy and then never move base extenders such as wheelie bars ALSO declare a 28x38 box like the robots who flop (since these are functionally the same thing)?

I didn't ask it - I just thought it was interesting.. I don't think they're trying to skirt around rules, but it's a fair question. Every new answer that FIRST provides seems to open up another discussion.

I think the whole issue of being "in" may affect few teams in the grand scope of things. But, I think bottom line is that people want to know exactly how refs will make their calls and throw penalties. Must they see it with their own eyes? What if they happen to miss the touch for whatever reason (blocked view, not paying attention, short staffed, etc)? Etc.. etc... I'm sure it'll be one of the first things addressed at driver's meetings..

[Ken Patton]

Originally Posted by dlavery

But I have to ask, if there was so much confusion about what would be considered the "base" of the robot and this was such a big deal, why did everyone wait to actually ask FIRST about it until 2/16/2005 (the first time this shows up in the Q&A system)? One would imagine that if so many teams were really confused by this, and if the determination of the answer would lead to drastic impacts on their robot designs, some one would have asked about it much, much sooner in the process.

Perhaps it was because we all thought we knew what the base was, until the 2/16 ruling came out. I submit that when FIRST defined the base to be only that which remains within the 28x38 box, many teams were surprised. This ruling ruled out tip-over bots and bots which expand beyond the 28x38.

Since 2/28, tipover bots were allowed as long as the team makes an arrangement with the ref about what is considered "in" the 28x38 box.

Those of us with "expanders" are worried because we have not been allowed to redfine our box.

Originally Posted by dlavery

I have to wonder, is this really a catastrophic issue for the majority of teams? Or is it really an issue for a very small number of teams, who just happen to be very vocal? (I looked through the threads to see how many teams were represented vs. repeated to reach my own conclusion, I will let you reach yours).

I'm not sure how many teams it affects. It might not be catastrophic for any of us - we are all buying *really* visible zipties, maybe? I'm sure there are some who are not vocal and who are just hoping it gets sorted out. I'm sure there are some who have not even read these forums and who missed the Q&A, and who are reading only the updates.

I thought the point was not how many teams were affected, but an ongoing effort to make the rules and game simple, easy to understand, consistent, and grandmother-friendly....

Ken

[Natchez]

Originally Posted by dlavery

Lucien, I honestly don't know where you are trying to go with this. Within just a few paragraphs, you urge the referees to ignore rules violations unless they are so blatent that they cannot be ignored and adopt some completely undefined "neighborhood" policy for determining the robot/loading zone condition, yet then you admonish everyone that "rules are NOT to be broken."

I'm truly sorry if I conveyed that I was urging the referees to ignore the rules violations. I was simply predicting that the refs will not call most of the violations. This, I believe, will be for a number of reasons that is a thread unto itself but goes down the same line as why I don't call all of the fouls and walking violations in peewee basketball. Thoughts like, "they did not gain an advantage" or "let's not stop the flow of the game for a small foul" are going through my head during a game. Granted, I have not ref'ed a peewee game in a long time so things may have changed. Please allow me reiterate that I do not see this as an issue with the refs but with the spot in which they have been put by the rules. It was just a prediction of what will happen. With that said, as a team, we will stick to the rule as it is written and clarified and not adjust to the way that it is enforced if the two turn out to be different.

Off of the specific rule and onto "where I was trying to go with this," I was simply trying to say that if the rule and the enforcement turn out to be different then we are sending a wrong message to the FIRST community. The wrong message is that we, as a society, must not worry so much about the rules as much as the enforcement of the rules. This is a great time to remind everyone that I'm throwing pebbles here and not rocks ... I drive 63 in a 55 because I'm aware of the enforcement of the law while violating the law itself ... I've got another 5,389 rules that I routinely violate because I know the enforcement ... violating a few of them that start with "Thou shall" or "Thou shall not" might result in me residing in a place that I'd rather not be. It's true and am embarrassed to admit it!

The reason that I discuss societal values in the context of current rules is because "there is a lesson learned in everything we do." AND because I have an enormous respect for FIRST for the positive influence the program has on our youth and mentors. I hope to be part of the solutions that bring FIRST to become a more positive influence on the FIRST community. Trust me, I know that I'd be laughed out of the room if I was to trying to convey my "don't bend the rules" philosophy to a room full of high school football coaches. That's what makes FIRST so special ... we strive to create a society that our grandmothers would be proud.

Originally Posted by dlavery

Jason's remarks and quotes were right on target. There is no difference between the "loading zone" and "loading zone triangle." Specifically, refer to Section 4.2.1 of the Manual, Definitions: "LOADING ZONE – The triangular colored area on the floor at the sides of the field where robots may receive and/or retrieve TETRAS that are introduced into the game." You are trying to make a distinction between "loading zone" and "loading zone triangle" where there is no difference.

You are correct and touching is how many, if not most, of us read the rule. I was simply giving credence & sympathetic understanding to those who read it in a different light.

Originally Posted by dlavery

The comments regarding a baseball short stop being "in the neighborhood" are amusing but irrelevant. We are not playing baseball, and MLB rules do not apply. A single analogy with baseball was used to try to help clarify a single point of discussion with regard to the 2005 "Triple Play" rules. But everyone understands that is all that it was - a single analogy. Don't push it too hard, beyond its' intended use.

ALL of my comments are irrelevant if the rule is enforced as it is written. If this is the case, I will publicly applaud FIRST AND apologize for using everyone’s valuable white space and time.


Hope this clarifies my post,
Lucien

[Andy Baker]

Originally Posted by Natchez

I'm truly sorry if I conveyed that I was urging the referees to ignore the rules violations. ...(lots of stuff snipped).... If this is the case, I will publicly applaud FIRST AND apologize for using everyone’s valuable white space and time.
Hope this clarifies my post,
Lucien

Lucien,

You are bringing up an excellent discussion here and on other issues with the YMTC. With many of us being long-time, passionate FIRSTers, we all know that a new game brings new challenges, rules and changes.

One of the things that makes FIRST cool is that there are many brilliant people who are putting in their time to make FIRST great. As the case with typical brilliant people, they don't all think alike.

Since we have all of these changes from year to year and we have people who can think independently, we will see conflicts of opinions. You see this, and you try to raise issues early to see what these conflicts are. Some people escape from conflicts, others try to address them head on. You're a "head on" type of guy, and for that, I applaud you.

You may think that you are "using everyone's white space", but you are not. You are bringing up situations now that would have reared their ugly head later, when people (GDC, FIRST, referees) are not prepared to put together a unified answer. While your attention to this matter probably ruffled some feathers, it made us all aware of some gray areas that need to be closely looked at during the early weekends of Regional competition.

We now have a situation where many informed people will be looking at loading zone situations, seeing if things are being called consistently, and doing their best to touch the loading zone. Without your instigation to question the clarity of this issue, we would have many teams suprised by penalties during the early weeks of Regionals.

Thanks, Lucien.

Andy B.

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by Dzdconfusd

To all the partof this rule that really upset me I don't think has been truely addressed, Dave's comments above made me feel the need to point this out. Most of you seem to be talking more about the human player loading zone which isn't where I see the problem.

In Team update #8 on 2/4/04 FIRST added the following line to <G14> which in my opinion drastically changed the rules of the game:

If a robot touches a loading station tetra before it is in the LOADING ZONE, the offending alliance will be assessed a 10-point penalty and the tetra will not be scored.

Actually, I made no distinction between the automatic loading station and the manual loading station. My comments apply to both. I also do think that it is worth a re-read of Rule <G14>. In Update #2 on January 14, the rule was ammended to read:

<G14> Field attendants will place TETRAS on the Tetra Loading Stations on the side of the field opposite the HUMAN PLAYERS (i.e. the “automated” LOADING ZONE). A ROBOT must enter the corresponding LOADING ZONE, to retrieve the TETRA from the Loading Station, and enter it into play. The HUMAN PLAYER does not have to leave the pressure pad sensor during this operation. When the TETRA is removed from the Loading Station and the ROBOT has left the LOADING ZONE, the field attendant will place a new TETRA on the Loading Station at the first safe opportunity. Robots may not intentionally interfere with field attendant’s efforts to place TETRAS on the Loading Stations.

This update clarified the language in the orginal manual to make it clear that robots must enter the loading zone before retrieving a tetra. This did not change the basis of the original wording, but removed potential for mis-interpretation. The original wording ("At any time, a ROBOT may enter the corresponding loading zone to retrieve a tetra...") focused on the point that an alliance robot has an option to retrieve tetras from the automated loading stations (e.g. the use of "a ROBOT may enter the..."). But FIRST recognized that it could cause confusion when determining the temporal sequence of events, so issued the clarification. This was done very early in the process, in the first week after kick-off, so any impact to detailed robot designs should have been minimal.

In Update #8 on February 4, the following sentance was added: "If a robot touches a Loading Station tetra before it is in the LOADING ZONE, the offending alliance will be assessed a 10-point penalty and the tetra will not be scored." This update did not modify the rule, but simply stated the penalty associated with a violation of the rule that had been in place since January 14 (actually, since Kick-off and just clarified on 1/14). I don't see how this drastically changed the rules of the game.

Originally Posted by Ken Patton

I'm not sure how many teams it affects. It might not be catastrophic for any of us - we are all buying *really* visible zipties, maybe?

I bought a whole bag of nice bright day-glo orange ones at Home Depot.

Originally Posted by Andy Baker

One of the things that makes FIRST cool is that there are many brilliant people who are putting in their time to make FIRST great. As the case with typical brilliant people, they don't all think alike.

Andy -

The best part is that Lucien and I have known each other for the better part of 15 years, and we both DO think alike. And if that doesn't scare you, nothing ever will!

-dave

[Natchez]

Originally Posted by Andy Baker

... Without your instigation ... Thanks, Lucien.
Andy B.

Andy, thank you very much for the kind words.

Originally Posted by dlavery

... The best part is that Lucien and I have known each other for the better part of 15 years, and we both DO think alike. And if that doesn't scare you, nothing ever will!

Even though we might think alike, the two things Dave failed to mention are that he thinks a thousand times faster and ten thousand times more often than this Mississippi boy. As for Dave's ability to "set me straight" and to make me "explain myself", he has been doing this for about 15 years and I dearly appreciate it; it really makes me a better person and I consider him a mentor ... even though I'm going to roll his yard and leave 10,000 EMPTY Krispy Kreme boxes on his front lawn the next time I'm in D.C.

[dlavery]

Originally Posted by Natchez

... even though I'm going to roll his yard and leave 10,000 EMPTY Krispy Kreme boxes on his front lawn the next time I'm in D.C.

I still say that you owe me two more FULL boxes from a certain bet from two years ago...

[Natchez]

Originally Posted by Natchez

ALL of my comments are irrelevant if the rule is enforced as it is written. If this is the case, I will publicly applaud FIRST AND apologize for using everyone’s valuable white space and time.

From a post-regional perspective, I believe that this conversation is very healthy for FIRST. The experience of many CDers to predict when a rule might be an issue could be a very valuable resource to FIRST. If FIRST could somehow capture this knowledge before January each year, it could certainly help with the finer details of the rules; BUT with that written, I realize that it is an enormous task to create a new game each year and that time does not allow for a "committee" to discuss the finer points of the rules for a month ... also, the secrecy element of the game must be taken into consideration.

Originally Posted by Natchez

As the proud introducer of "train wreck" to this discussion, I now believe that you are 100% right, this will not be a big issue this year; not because the refs will get the calls right more than 80% of the time, but because the flags will be staying in their pockets on 95% of the violations.

The reason that I believe that we will be pleasantly surprised in '05 is that the refs will introduce an "in the neighborhood" policy for being in the loading zones similar to how we train our FLL refs, "Enforce the rules but give the teams the benefit of the doubt."

From what I have seen and heard, the "in the neighborhood" policy was in place at most of the regionals. Do you think it was?

Originally Posted by Natchez

Get your loading-zone-feelers here. For the low price of $399, you can forget all of those, "Oh, we got a penalty because we were straddling the loading zone" headaches. With our advanced design, installation is a zip. With our advanced distribution, you can have your loading-zone-feelers TODAY! Please send $390 to

Mississippi Curb Feelers, Inc.
PO Box 55555
The Great Sate of Mississippi

and then with the remaining $9, please go to Home Depot and pick up some wire "zip" ties. As soon as we receive your $390, we'll fax you instructions as to how to properly install the wire ties so they touch the floor . Please include your favorite charity with your payment and we'll send some money to them so we'll get a tax break and will not feel so guilty for gouging you.

Hundreds of robots with Loading-Zone-Feelers and not one check . So much for early retirement.

Originally Posted by dlavery

I bought a whole bag of nice bright day-glo orange ones at Home Depot.
...
I still say that you owe me two more FULL boxes from a certain bet from two years ago...

Can we call it even since you never sent in your $390 to Mississippi Curb Feelers, Inc. . Okay, okay, I'll bring your Krispy Kremes to the Championships ... I bought them right after the '03 Championships ... I'm sure they are still in the attic

Originally Posted by Pat Major

why not have the referees signal by raising an arm that a robot is in the loading station and it is safe for the team to remove a tetra.

Originally Posted by Natchez

I'll buy you lunch if we see a bunch of refs hands going up at Championships

At the Lone Star Regional, the refs would give a thumb-up signal to the human players when the robot was in the loading-zone. The refs would also, without penalty, wave the human players back if their robot was not in the loading-zone so they could try again. Hopefully, I'll still be buying lunch ... even if it's just a thumb going up!

Originally Posted by Natchez

If there is not a way for the refs to get the calls "right" at least 95% of the time, I think that the rule (whatever it ends up being) should be considered a failure. And if you think 95% is a high standard, this percentage means that there will be at least one missed call during each match resulting in a 10 point "swing" and in a game that will not see many matches over 50 points per alliance, a 10 point swing is huge and will probably swing many matches ... not excluding the World Championship matches. After thinking about it, maybe FIRST should be shooting for rules that ensure more like a 98% or 99% ref call accuracy rate; and for those that have a low accuracy rate, maybe the penalty should be less than 5% of the expected average score. These are the type of standards and litmus tests that I wish FIRST would adopt.

Do you think that the refs have been over 95% accurate on the loading-zone calls?

All in all, I think that this was the most common "missed" call this year with contact with a robot in a loading zone coming in a close second. It has been fun reviewing this post with 100/100 hindsight ... I was only at one regional so I definitely don't have a clear view of this issue. Again, I commend everyone on keeping this thread above-the-belt.

Finally & most importantly, this has not been a knock against the refs. They do a great job and we are forever grateful for their service.

I hope you had a great year,
Lucien