2006 Rules Now Available Encrypted

[Greg Ross]

Originally Posted by Sidney San Martín

I just found this tidbit in section 6 (transportation), page 5:
"FIRST will allow you to keep all of your robot controls (Operator Interface, OI power supply, joysticks, etc.)..."

Are you supposed to have an extra RC, though? You need that for programming work.

My thought is that the RC falls under the "etc."

[Sidney San Martín]

Originally Posted by GW (Greg) Ross

My thought is that the RC falls under the "etc."

It could have been put before "OI power supply" in the list! The RC may not be considered part of "controls."

[Nuttyman54]

Well, I don't know....it IS a Robot CONTROLLER, and therefore is part of the "controls" per-se, but then again, you never know with those crazy FIRST people...
(just kidding, we love you guys)

[sburro]

Originally Posted by Sidney San Martín

I just found this tidbit in section 6 (transportation), page 5:
"FIRST will allow you to keep all of your robot controls (Operator Interface, OI power supply, joysticks, etc.) and not ship them with your robot on Tuesday, 2/21/2006. This will allow you to continue to work on your programming. If you decide not to ship controls with your robot, please remember to bring your controls to your initial competition. FIRST does not have replacement controls."

Are you supposed to have an extra RC, though? You need that for programming work. The rule will, at least, give teams time to tinker with control board design.

Could this mean an interesting kind of programming and control challenge this year? Hmm…

I believe they said the same thing last year. remember, the brain box as I call it still needs 12 volt to operate so this might not mean that much.

[Elgin Clock]

Originally Posted by Sidney San Martín

I just found this tidbit in section 6 (transportation), page 5:
"FIRST will allow you to keep all of your robot controls (Operator Interface, OI power supply, joysticks, etc.) and not ship them with your robot on Tuesday, 2/21/2006. This will allow you to continue to work on your programming. If you decide not to ship controls with your robot, please remember to bring your controls to your initial competition. FIRST does not have replacement controls."

Are you supposed to have an extra RC, though? You need that for programming work. The rule will, at least, give teams time to tinker with control board design.

Could this mean an interesting kind of programming and control challenge this year? Hmm…

Keeping those after ship date has been allowed in the past. I see no surprise there.

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson

I read a bit more, you have to win an award at a regional to submit. I think this is good too. It will give the awards more gravitas.

I saw that. That's even more reason to aim high.

[Joe Johnson]

Originally Posted by Sidney San Martín

...
"...This will allow you to continue to work on your programming....."

This puts us back to the way we were in prior to last year. Last year they tried to save us from ourselves by not allowing programming outside of the FIRST competitions (and perhaps the fix it windows, I can't recall).

It was a good effort, but it didn't seem workable. I am glad that that they returned to the old rule.

But... ...we often ended up killing ourselves after shipping to get the code right. It is easy to do because everyone agreed we HAD to make time to fix a broken weld or we wouldn't meet our ship date :-0

We could never muster the same courageous effort to fix the code because we could always fix the code after the ship date.

FIRST tried to save us last year. We sort of didn't let them. So we go the old rule back. We've go no one to blame but ourselves (and that welder who took so long fixing the arm ;-)

Joe J.

[Nuttyman54]

huh...we were always under the impression that EVERYTHING had to be shipped...i guess our Rules reader didn't read that carefully...oops

[Joe Johnson]

Originally Posted by Elgin Clock

Keeping those after ship date has been allowed in the past. I see no surprise there.



I saw that. That's even more reason to aim high.

I don't think they said we could program last year -- there were many clarifications on this topic, perhaps the rules initially said program and then an update changed it, then they allowed you to program whenever you wanted, but you had to actually type in the changes at the competions -- similar to planning a design change before a competition and implementing at the competition.

I have commented elsewhere so I will leave it at that.

Joe J.

[Sidney San Martín]

Originally Posted by Nuttyman54

huh...we were always under the impression that EVERYTHING had to be shipped...i guess our Rules reader didn't read that carefully...oops

Same here. No interesting little tidbit, I guess.

[Scott Shaw 237]

Just to clarify the rule on the controllers, this was in last years manual

FIRST will allow you to keep all of your robot controls (Operator Interface, OI power supply, joysticks, etc.)
and not ship it with your robot on Tuesday, 2/22/2005. This will allow you to continue to work on your
programming. If you decide not to ship it with your robot, please remember to bring it to your initial
competition. FIRST does not have replacement controls.

Section 6.4.3 in case you were wondering.

[Stu Bloom]

Originally Posted by Elgin Clock

I did find a software that allows a "put one password in and let it work for all times you open it" type magic, but I don't recall the name.

Sorry.

Just make a Notepad file with the password once it is released on Saturday, and copy paste until you get the files without prompting after Saturday.

And, for all who are not near CD, make sure you write that password down very quickly and in the right case formatting when they reveal it Saturday.

It was only on the screen for like.. maximum 15 seconds last year, which was not nearly enough time.

I hope they keep it up for a minute while someone is talking or something when they finally reveal it this year.

IF YOU HAVE the full version of Adobe Acrobat (not just the reader), after we receive the password and you open your encrypted documents, you can actually disable the encryption and save them as "un-locked" (de-crypted) files - then you won't have to enter the password each time you open them. This feature is under the "File" menu - select "Document Security".

[Venkatesh]

I'll mirror everything at http://endeavour.zapto.org/usfirst/2006comp/.

[fnsnet]

I've also mirrored the files at the link below.
Sorry about the lack of file information, I did this quick.

here

[Venkatesh]

We should have a list of mirrors somewhere, hopefully before Saturday.

[Tom Bottiglieri]

Originally Posted by Sidney San Martín

I just found this tidbit in section 6 (transportation), page 5:
"FIRST will allow you to keep all of your robot controls (Operator Interface, OI power supply, joysticks, etc.) and not ship them with your robot on Tuesday, 2/21/2006. This will allow you to continue to work on your programming. If you decide not to ship controls with your robot, please remember to bring your controls to your initial competition. FIRST does not have replacement controls."

Are you supposed to have an extra RC, though? You need that for programming work. The rule will, at least, give teams time to tinker with control board design.

Could this mean an interesting kind of programming and control challenge this year? Hmm…

You've been able to keep the OI every year. Plus, any major code changes are going to need to be done on the real bot. You can theorize all you want, but something will always go wrong.