Hits, Misses, & Suggestions -- long message

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Posted by James Jones.

Engineer on team #267, The Demolition Squad, from North Broward & St Andrews and Motorola.

Posted on 8/18/2000 10:48 AM MST


In Reply to: Hits, Misses, & Suggestions -- long message posted by Joe Johnson on 8/16/2000 9:49 AM MST:



Unlimited bearings - Gotta Do It!

Bumpers - Don't throw the baby out with the bath water. As robots get faster (which they are - especially if more drill motors are used or the current limit is raised) collisions become more destructive. What they need to do is make the bumper rules more lax so people can accomodate their unique robot configurations. A weight credit would be good as well. I know ramming is not allowed but let's face it, if your opponent is about to score the game point and you are at the other end of the field you are not going to charge across then slow down before trying to push them away from the goal. Let us put the bumpers wherever we want and give us a few extra few pounds if we use them.

When giving awards, put a picture of the robot up on the screen. There are too many teams to remember them all by name or number, I didn't even remember all our alliance partners much less teams I just saw in the pits or playing in other rounds.

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Posted by Janna.

Student on team #349, The RoBahamas, from International Academy and Ford Motor Company.

Posted on 8/18/2000 9:47 PM MST


In Reply to: Hits, Misses, & Suggestions -- long message posted by Joe Johnson on 8/16/2000 9:49 AM MST:



This problem may not be very common, but it certainly caused our team much grief during Nationals this year. To keep it short, somewhere between Regionals and Nationals, FIRST had basically decided that because of the size of Nationals, a word somewhere had to be changed from 'recommended' to 'required.' Since we had built our robot to work with the 'recommended' definition and this change was never formally announced (we were informed by the field manager after a match), we were forced to modify our robot's arm before our next match or risk disqualification. We managed to pull it off, miraculously, but we were lucky.

I am very happy with how concise FIRST has been with the manual and updates (like by the end of the updates, 99% of it is very clear-cut), but in the future I'd like to either see:

1)more thought and foresight put into the other 1% or...

2)unconditional support of formally announced rules at events.

I realize that not *everything* can be foreseen and that the FIRST people are working very hard on being clear, so I'm leaning towards option 2. Hopefully either way, it would help at least a few teams.

Janna

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Posted by Matt Ryan.

Student on team #69, HYPER, from Quincy Public Schools and Gillette.

Posted on 8/23/2000 4:29 PM MST


In Reply to: Hits, Misses, & Suggestions -- long message posted by Joe Johnson on 8/16/2000 9:49 AM MST:



For the most part, I like your proposal. The only part I disagree with is that the Nationals should be invitation only. I feel that any team that wants to compete in the Nationals should be able to, contrary to what you posted in your message.

-=Matt Ryan (aka THE Freshman)=-