Least favorite rules?

[JamesBrown]

Well if they got rid of size/weight limits and that whole ship after 6 weeks thing I would be happy.

Honestly one thing I don't like about this year is no herding, and only scoring one game piece at a time.

[Jonathan Norris]

By far the 'wedge' rule. Now this is what I call a wedge

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Norris

By far the 'wedge' rule. Now this is what I call a wedge

Jonathan, that thing isn't a mere wedge. It's a cow-catcher. Did you leave a trail of opponents with their wheels spinning in the air that year?

[meatmanek]

I would have to agree that I'm disappointed that we have to ship our OI. We didn't get a chance to paint our OI, so it's nowhere close to being as pretty as it could have been. Even a solid coat of blue would have been nice. We would do it at our next regional, but we've got some issues: I've already epoxied in the LEDs, so we can't paint from the inside, and paint on the outside often gets scratched off.

It might have been a good idea just to ship the OI board itself, keep our custom box, and paint that before our first regional.

[Chevymann89]

I would say any part of the lifting or lifted robot being support by a tube, even if taking it out doesn’t change the 12" off the ground, Eliminates the bonus points for that match. I strongly disagree and dislike that rule. This rule was called A LOT at GLR.

[lukevanoort]

Originally Posted by efoote868

I also dislike the rule for the power distribution blocks. Put together, it weighs about a pound, and along with the different breaker panels, it weighs around 2-3 lbs

Originally Posted by waialua359

the 72 x 72" rule!

These are two of my three least favorite rules. The battery shipping requirements are the last one. That is if you don't count odd/sarcastic Q&A answers as rules, if you do, well.... then there are a few more.

[efoote868]

we joked around with the no herding rule... we called it the 868 rule (we usually try to do everything at once... i.e. stacking 4 to 5 tetras at once). i think if they didn't have that rule, we'd probably grab 6 or 7... and go at it but, since its not legal...

[akshar]

no herding
and the fact that almost every thing results in a DQ of the team, almost makes it hard to play good defense...almost

[Stephen Kowski]

new battery....i have a lot of batteries i cannot use anymore on the field

also im not too keen on this "signal light", am I the only one who loved that big heavy light? that used to be awesome, and heavy, but mainly awesome

[Kevin Sevcik]

I have a suggestion. Let's all step away from this thread for a few months, build some robots, go to some competitions, and then come back and use this thread to develop some good comments and feedback for the team forums.... Only after we've seen all the rules in action and see how they work. Instead of guessing about how things in the future would've been better with different rules, or declaring our dislike for a rule because we heard someone say something about some part of it.

[GMKlenklen]

whatever, dude... I want to use some electic solinoid actuators! lol. pnumatics are just more trouble than it's worth for a small latch. And It doesn't help that IFI fresh ran out of HS-322HD servos!

[TimCraig]

My least favorite rule is all the detail FIRST goes to defining how number should go on the robots and then don't bother to enforce it. There are always a slew of robots with small numbers, numbers not on all four sides, poor contrast.... It's annoying when teams go to the trouble to do something so simple right and others get to skate.

[Jared Russell]

The 72" penalty for unintentionally tipped robots, BY FAR!

Penalties exist for two reasons.

1. To ensure that the arena is safe.
2. To ensure that the arena is fair.

This penalty has nothing to do with safety, and it further penalizes a team that's been disabled!

[Bongle]

My most disliked rule is probably the no-handling-of-multiple-tubes rule. Why remove a potential challenge? If people want to aim for the sky, let them.

[tcj103]

The kinds of rules I dislike most are the ones where due to some random act, you are penalized. This year, it happens when a human player tosses a ringer, and it snags on the robot, most of the time on your alliance flag. Once that 'bot "controls" another ringer, it's like a 10 point penalty for controlling two ringers. Very annoying.

Also, the tape rule, which I saw in an earlier response. Maybe not the rule itself, so much as the blind and somewhat arbitrary enforcement. I understand not using tape to hold your gripper together, but there how about the intended use of some kind of tape being allowed? Example this year was skateboard grip-tape, which can be used for traction on a ramp. A team was told this was not legal, unless the tape was glued on, after removing the adhesive.

After writing this, the tape rule, for the above reason, is my most dis-liked rule. A rule that states the intended use of a tape, if it's a specialty item, should be allowed. ENGINEERS DESIGN TAPE AND ADHESIVES. FIRST IS NOT RECOGNIZING THE ENGINEERS WHO DEVELOPE AND ANALYZE THESE PRODUCTS! They are basically saying that any tape product (other than electrical tape for insulation) is "beneath" the standards of FIRST.

I'm going to contact 3M about this...